Gas–surface interactions in lightweight fibrous carbon materials

We investigate reactive and non-reactive scattering of hyperthermal beam of gas particles within highly porous carbon-fiber preform using particle-based numerical simulations. High-resolution X-ray tomography images of the microstructure is used to resolve its complex fiber network. The gas–surface interaction is studied at material temperatures up to 2000 K, typical of hypersonic aero-thermal environments. We extended a detailed surface chemistry model for oxidation of vitreous carbon to carbon-fiber materials. The model agrees well with experiments and predicts increasing oxidation product flux with larger porosities. Higher porosities lead to a larger fraction of thermalized argon atoms and greater mole fraction of CO for the oxygen beam due to greater penetration of the beam into the microstructure. It is found that a 6% porosity increase results in higher mole fractions of CO and lower amounts of O, with differences of around 10% of the total product flux. Furthermore, we construct an effective oxidation model with porosity-dependent rates that inherently accounts for the characteristics of the material microstructure and its varying porosity. Comparison of full microstructure simulation results and the effective model applied to a flat surface showed excellent agreement, thus suggesting that the model can be used directly in computational fluid dynamics codes. [Display omitted]