Modelling the Thermal Decomposition of Carbon Fibre Materials During Re-Entry

The SCARAB software is a tool for calculating the motion and aerothermal destruction of spacecraft entering the Earth's atmosphere. To increase the accuracy of the re-entry simulation for spacecraft containing CFRP as wall material, the modelling of the properties of CFRP was improved. Different to the simple conventional "metallic" model with monolithic properties a sophisticated model with different zones with different properties and taking into account additional effects was developed. First a mathematical model was formulated, which was then converted to a numerical model. The numerical 1D model was tested in a testbed software, then implemented into the SCARAB software and applied to wind tunnel conditions and the re-entry of the ROSAT satellite.