CORK FILLED ETHYLENE-PROPYLENE-DIENE MONOMER BASED THERMAL INSULATION FOR SPACE VEHICLES

摘要

Asbestos filled ethylene-propylene diene ter-monomer (EPDM) based vulcanizates were widely being used asthermal insulation in space vehicles because of their high ozone and oxygen resistant, superior mechanical, thermaland ablation properties. In this study efforts have been made to replace asbestos by cork in EPDM based thermalinsulation because of the carcinogenic nature of asbestos. Various insulation batches of cork filled EPDM wereobtained by compounding cork powder with EPDM in Two-roll-mill in presence of other required ingredients.Thermal, ablative and insulative performances of the cork-EPDM were investigated for their application in spacevehicles. Thermal gravimetric analysis showed that activation energy required for the thermal decomposition of theinsulator increased with the increase of the cork percentage in the formulation. It was also evident from experimentalresults that cork loadings also enhanced thermal ablation performance of EPDM based thermal insulation. Although,no significant reduction in specific gravity of the insulation was observed but thermal conductivity and back-sidetemperature rise of the composite significantly decreased with cork loading.