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<p>The destructive re-entry of space debris such as upper-stage launchers and non-operational satellites involves a wide range of coupled thermo-chemical and thermo-mechanical ablation processes. Within the Design for Demise paradigm, ensuring that disintegration leads to an admissible on-ground casualty probability requires a reliable prediction capability for these complex phenomena. Among the materials of concern, glassy components—commonly used in high-precision optics and scientific instruments—pose a particular challenge, as their ablation behavior involves melting, shear removal, and evaporation, with the coexistence of gas, liquid, and solid phases. A critical aspect of this behavior is the evaporation process and the subsequent injection of vaporized species into the surrounding high-temperature reactive flow, both of which remain insufficiently understood and difficult to model with confidence. In this work, we develop advanced models and numerical strategies to describe these processes in detail. The governing equations are formulated for each phase, and the interface balances that couple them are derived with particular emphasis on evaporation modeling. A staggered coupling strategy is implemented to carry out simulations of a VKI’s Plasmatron experiment performed on a quartz sample, representative of glassy materials. The numerical results demonstrate good to very good agreement with experimental measurements, despite the complexity and multi-physics nature of the problem. The simulations provide new insight into the interplay between evaporation, the injection of species into the surrounding flow and the other momentum and energy exchanges, shedding light on mechanisms that strongly influence the ablation rate. These results constitute a first validation of the proposed physical models and numerical methodology, and they open the way for broader application under different conditions. An initial sensitivity analysis highlights the key physical parameters governing the ablation process, providing a necessary basis for identifying where model improvements should be prioritized.</p>

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Unraveling liquefying ablation and evaporation phenomena in high-enthalpy flow by means of high-fidelity numerical methods: improved modeling and sensitivity analysis

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月18日

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  • Pierre Schrooyen,
  • David Henneaux,
  • Achraf El Harfoch,
  • Julien Klauner,
  • Bruno Barros Dias,
  • Bernd Helber,
  • Thierry Magin,
  • Louis Walpot

摘要

The destructive re-entry of space debris such as upper-stage launchers and non-operational satellites involves a wide range of coupled thermo-chemical and thermo-mechanical ablation processes. Within the Design for Demise paradigm, ensuring that disintegration leads to an admissible on-ground casualty probability requires a reliable prediction capability for these complex phenomena. Among the materials of concern, glassy components—commonly used in high-precision optics and scientific instruments—pose a particular challenge, as their ablation behavior involves melting, shear removal, and evaporation, with the coexistence of gas, liquid, and solid phases. A critical aspect of this behavior is the evaporation process and the subsequent injection of vaporized species into the surrounding high-temperature reactive flow, both of which remain insufficiently understood and difficult to model with confidence. In this work, we develop advanced models and numerical strategies to describe these processes in detail. The governing equations are formulated for each phase, and the interface balances that couple them are derived with particular emphasis on evaporation modeling. A staggered coupling strategy is implemented to carry out simulations of a VKI’s Plasmatron experiment performed on a quartz sample, representative of glassy materials. The numerical results demonstrate good to very good agreement with experimental measurements, despite the complexity and multi-physics nature of the problem. The simulations provide new insight into the interplay between evaporation, the injection of species into the surrounding flow and the other momentum and energy exchanges, shedding light on mechanisms that strongly influence the ablation rate. These results constitute a first validation of the proposed physical models and numerical methodology, and they open the way for broader application under different conditions. An initial sensitivity analysis highlights the key physical parameters governing the ablation process, providing a necessary basis for identifying where model improvements should be prioritized.