Validation of Porous Microstructure Analysis (PuMA) against Experimental Thermal Conductivity of Thermal Protection System Materials

The goal of this research is to utilize microstructures of Thermal Protection System (TPS) materials to quantify material properties. Three novel TPS materials were developed and assembled at the University of Texas at Austin. They were tested on an Oxy-Acetylene Test Bed (OTB) to allow for validation of this method for virgin and char materials. To validate this novel methodology, the thermal conductivity of the materials was quantified in two ways: experimentally and through microstructures analysis. Experimental thermal conductivity was measured using a Modified Transient Plane Source (MTPS) instrument at Florida State University. Synchrotron micro-computed tomography scans were taken at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Microstructural thermal conductivity was predicted using semantic segmentation, machine learning models, and NASA’s Porous Microstructure Analysis (PuMA) software. The thermal conductivities found using these two methods are compared and potential sources of error are discussed.

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