Simulation of Thermal Behavior of Glass Fiber/Phenolic Composites Exposed to Heat Flux on One Side

Abstract

A 3D thermal response model is developed to evaluate the thermal behavior of glass fiber/phenolic composite exposed to heat flux on one side. The model is built upon heat transfer and energy conservation equations in which the heat transfer is in the form of anisotropic heat conduction, absorption by matrix decomposition, and diffusion of gas. Arrhenius equation is used to characterize the pyrolysis reaction of the materials. The diffusion equation for the decomposition gas is included for mass conservation. The temperature, density, decomposition degree, and rate are extracted to analyze the process of material decomposition, which is implemented by using the UMATHT (User subroutine to define a material’s thermal behavior) and USDFLD (User subroutine to redefine field variables) subroutines via ABAQUS code. By comparing the analysis results with experimental data, it is found that the model is valid to simulate the evolution of a glass fiber/phenolic composite exposed to heat flux from one side. The comparison also shows that longer time is taken to complete the pyrolysis reaction with increasing depth for materials from the numerical simulation, and the char region and the pyrolysis reaction region enlarge further with increasing time. Furthermore, the decomposition degree and temperature are correlated with depths, as well as the peak value of decomposition rate and the time to reach the peak value.

Influence of weaving parameters on thermal protection performance of gradient3Dwoven composite

“…23,24 The ablation behavior of TPM can be predicted more accurately by establishing reliable mathematical models. [25][26][27][28][29] Unfortunately, the above ablation behavior simulations only consider the influence of material parameters (e.g., porosity, specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity, etc.). They do not consider the influence of mesoscale structure (e.g., weave structure of the fabric, yarn spacing, etc.…”

“…Many ablation simulation codes have been developed, such as CHAR, 20 Icarus, 21 CHyPS 22 and PATO 23,24 . The ablation behavior of TPM can be predicted more accurately by establishing reliable mathematical models 25–29 . Unfortunately, the above ablation behavior simulations only consider the influence of material parameters (e.g., porosity, specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity, etc.).…”

Mechanism Identification and Kinetics Analysis of Thermal Degradation for Carbon Fiber/Epoxy Resin

“…In addition, Tranchard [ 11 ] developed a material thermal response model based on SEMCEF for fire environments and validated it with the T700/M21 composite material used in Airbus 350. Li [ 12 , 13 ] also developed a thermal response model for composites in the fire environment based on ABAQUS.…”

Evaluation and design methods for high‐efficiency charring composite under complex coupling mechanisms in both material and boundary layer

“…The chemical equilibrium mode and limited reaction rate mode could be used to describe the chemical reactions for the decomposition process during ablation and simulated by using the commercial software (COM-SOL) or some computer codes (CMA and FIAT). [21][22][23][24][25][26] On the other hand, the surface ablation process of the material is not negligible. When studying the problem of boundary movement caused by surface ablation, usually the finite element method was used in combination with the carbon-oxygen reaction model to calculate the surface ablation recession.…”