Engineering & Technologyarticle2026-10-02

The Mysteries of Real Materials

Open access2 citations

Abstract

The presentation will consist in showing arc jet data mysterious to the modelers. It will show a short movie (10-20 sec) of an arc jet test where a material exhibited a failure mode that nobody understands followed by thermocouple data from arc jet tests on another material of interest in which the T/Cs exhibit repeatable, consistent, fascinating yet frustrating response characteristics that have the modelers stumped. This all happens between RT and 200 F. Doesnt sound important? Unless we figure out what it is and can model it, we can’t size the TPS with any confidence.

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View paper (DOI)Open access versionOpenAlexNASA STI Repository (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)Published 2026-10-02

Authors: Bernard Laub

Institutions: Langley Research Center, Ames Research Center