NASA collaboration captures heat shield breakdown in 3D during heating

Researchers working with NASA and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source captured three-dimensional images of heat shield materials as they broke down during heating, Phys.org reports. The technique lets researchers observe changes during the process rather than relying on before-and-after images. A specialized chamber heats samples to 900℃ and varies pressure and gas composition. X-ray scans record their internal structure, while a trained generative adversarial network converts faster, intermediate-resolution scans into high-resolution 3D records. The researchers observed cork particles forming voids in SLA-561V and branching microchannels in SLA-220. They have not yet updated the simulations engineers use to predict heat shield behavior.