A Raman spectroscopic technique has been developed which can measure the maximum temperatures experienced by charring heat-shield materials and determine their post-test compositions (char, pyrolysis zone, and virgin resin). The technique has the capabilities of analyzing circular areas less than 0.1 mm in diameter or rectangles 0.1 mm in width and 2 mm in length. It can provide fine detailed surface and internal mappings and perform the analyses rapidly and conveniently in the laboratory following testing or flight recovery. Representative plots of temperature and composition profiles are provided. The data are compared with computations from the Charring Material Ablation (CMA) code.
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