Ricerc@Sapienza

Since the beginning of the Space Age, the re-entry environment has been crucial both for manned and unmanned missions. Thus, along with high temperatures and plasma created during the re-entry phase, several issues must be considered in order to use new technologies and materials. Carbon/Carbon composites (C/C) are widely used for high temperatures applications, included Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) for re-entry; thus, the effects of the space environment have to be considered in order to design and produce a re-entry structure that can be used also for long duration missions.

Nano composite epoxy based composites were fabricated with different nano scale additives with a commonly used weight percent (wt. %). The candidate additives are Multi-wall carbon nano-tubes (MWCNTs), Alumina (AL2O3), and three different types of graphene (G-CD270, G-33C and G-24N). Ultra-sonication and homogenization were used to uniformly disperse the nano additives into epoxy.

Since the beginning of Space Age, the re-entry phase represents a crucial task for both manned and unmanned aerospace missions. Along with high temperatures and plasma created by the spacecraft/atmosphere dramatic interaction, several issues must be considered in order to use new technologies and materials for re-entry systems. In particular, the effects of space environment due to ultraviolet (UV) and atomic oxygen (AO) have to be taken into account, in order to design and realize aerospace structures useful also for long duration missions.