Development of a Catalytic Coating for a Shuttle Flight Experiment

Abstract

A spray-on coating was developed for use on the shuttle wing tiles to obtain data that could be correlated with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solutions to better understand the effect of chemical heating on a fore-body heat shield having a turbulent boundary layer during planetary entry at hypersonic speed. The selection of a spray-on coating was conducted in two Phases 1) screening tests to select the catalytic coating formulation and 2) surface property determination using both arc-jet and side-arm facilities at NASA Ames Research Center. Comparison of the predicted surface temperature profile over a flat-plate with measured values obtained during arc-jet exposure (Phase I study) was used to validate the surface properties obtained during Phase II.