Elastic and thermal properties of thermoset materials are critical in the design and performance of ablative composites which are used as heat shields to protect space vehicles during atmospheric reentry.  To gain insight into the design of these materials for extreme environments, it is valuable to understand how the chemical make-up at the nano-scale can influence the thermal and mechanical bulk properties.  An atomistic computational study allows us to manipulate the structural make-up of individual phenolic chains as well as generate various cross-linked (or cured) systems. An all-atom force field was chosen to investigate how the strength and thermal conductivity of the phenolic material varies as a function of the degree of cross-linking and chemical make-up of the phenolic chains.  Small-scale mechanical tests were performed to compute various moduli for the phenolic systems above and below the glass transition at varied degrees of cross-linking.  The thermal conductivity was obtained using the Green-Kubo approach for the virgin and cured phenolic systems.

Thermal and mechanical properties of cross-linked phenolic resins for thermal protection materials for space vehicles

248th National Meeting (2014)

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