A multi-dimensional finite element solver for decomposing and non-decomposing ablating materials has recently been developed and is discussed in this paper. The underlying mathematical and material models are presented along with its discretization via the finite element method. The governing equations and solution algorithm is based on the one-dimensional control-volume finite element method (CVFEM) Chaleur code, a successful ablation code in use at Sandia National Labs, and this paper represents a multi-dimensional extension of Chaleur. The Equilibrium Surface Thermochemistry (EST) code, an equilibrium gas/surface thermochemistry code for decomposing and non-decomposing materials that was previously developed by the authors is used in conjunction with this new multi-dimensional ablation code to provide ablation thermochemistry information (i.e. B'_c and enthalpy tables). This new multi-dimensional ablation response code is first applied to solve two established code-to-code comparison problems with tabular aeroheating data. Another aspect of this work has been to develop the ability to couple CFD-based aeroheating data to the ablation code as a spatial and time variant boundary condition. Towards this end, we have established a one-way passing of aeroheating data from a hypersonic CFD code to the ablation code. We then examine the problem of simulating the ablation response of non-decomposing and decomposing materials in two arc-jet facilities.
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