Synergistic reinforcement and multiscaled design of lightweight heat protection and insulation integrated composite with outstanding high-temperature resistance up to 2500 °C

Abstract

Developing lightweight and efficient ablation-resistant materials with thermal insulation and conformability over 2500 °C is extremely important for the thermal protection of hypervelocity aerospace vehicles, but significant challenges remain. Herein, a unique lightweight heat protection and insulation integrated composite (QCF/SPA) is developed by a hierarchical construction strategy, integrating macro-scale quartz/carbon hybrid fiber preform, micro-scale silicone aerogel, and nanoscale phenolic aerogel. The QCF/SPA with the macro-micro-nano multiscale structure has the advantages of low-density nature (0.33 ± 0.02 g/cm3), superior insulation (0.050–0.063 W/(m·K)), excellent thermal stability, and mechanical strength. More importantly, the QCF/SPA has outstanding ablation resistance and thermal insulation based on the efficient dual silicon & dual carbon multiple synergistic mechanism originally proposed in this work. The line ablation rate and mass ablation rate reached 0.058 mm/s and 0.014 g/s under the 3.62 MW/m2 oxyacetylene assessment. The as-fabricated QCF/SPA with these combined properties is ideal for thermal protection systems of hypervelocity spacecraft, space re-entry vehicles, rocket propulsion devices, and missile launchers.