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Verification & Validation for High Temperature Material Modeling & Applications – Online Short Course (Starts 17 Feb 2026)
- From 17 February – 12 March 2026 (4 Weeks, 8 Classes, 16 Total Hours)
- Every Tuesday and Thursday at 1–3 p.m. Eastern Time (all sessions will be recorded and available for replay; course notes will be available for download)
- This new unique course taught by leading experts from AIAA’s Thermophysics Technical Committee covers the behavior and test methods for high temperature materials, which are critical for hypersonic vehicle design.
- All students will receive an AIAA Certificate of Completion at the end of the course.
Description
OVERVIEW
High temperature materials are critical for hypersonic vehicle design. The behavior of these materials, whether they are traditional ablative thermal protection systems (TPS) or more shape stable systems, must be understood for proper vehicle design. This course introduces the analytical and test methods utilized to capture this behavior. The link between test measurements, analytical model verification and validation, and uncertainty quantification is explored from basic property measurements to subscale arc-jet tests.KEY TOPICS
- Introduction to high temperature materials modeling and testing
- Material microstructure for common materials. Microstructure-resolved properties and mesoscale physics.
- Macroscale modeling of common materials.
- Experimental methods – how to set up a successful test and a comparison of common test methods
- Material properties measurements – introduction to common test methods and how this data is utilized in analytical models
- Heated material test methods – a comparison of test methods to rapidly heat materials along with pros and cons for each type
- Analytical model verification and validation – an introduction to the methods used to validate or verify analytical models with collected test data
- Uncertainty Quantification – an introduction into understanding and quantifying analytical and test measurement uncertainty.
- [Detailed outline below]
AUDIENCE
This course is relevant to those working in the high temperature materials world associated with space, reentry, and hypersonics. The intended audience is graduate students or working professionals interested in the prediction and testing of high temperature materials. Students should have a background in engineering, materials science, or both. Course materials will delve into graduate level materials but at an introductory level providing the basic equations and theory but do not require any specific pre-requisites. The instructors enjoy burning up materials and trying to figure out stuff about it, and they hope to share that passion through the class!
COURSE FEES (Sign-In To Register)
- AIAA Member Price: $945 USD
- Non-Member Price: $1145 USD
- AIAA Student Member Price: $595 USD
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- AIAA Member Price: $945 USD
- Non-Member Price: $1145 USD
- AIAA Student Member Price: $595 USD
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OUTLINE
Class 1: Introduction to high temperature materials modeling
and testing
- What is it and why is it important
- Brief history of high-speed flight
- Recent advancements and the relationship of Temperature α Velocity3
- Common materials used and why, Categories: shape stable vs. ablative
- Ablation model diagram with all mass, momentum, and energy balances for the surface
- Brief history of ablation modeling
- Brief history of materials testing
- Show engineering cycle of analysis to test.
- No “one model fits all” because materials behave differently. Discuss pros and cons to current analytical methods
- Define microscale and mesoscale modeling and show link – details in upcoming Classes
- Show test levels (properties, small samples, to subsystems) and show link to modeling
- High Temperature Experimental Methods and Facilities
- Why test?
- To understand material behavior (new learning)
- To validate analytical modeling (anchor existing information)
- What to test?
- Testing objectives – defining clear test goals
- Understand what you need to advance your understanding
- Where to test?
- Facility categories or types – figures and tables of major facilities.
- Alt/mach, shear/q cold wall, etc.
- How to start? (i.e. from a trajectory or use case)
- A walkthrough of an “escalation” approach, increasing the similarity of your test to your end application environment as you go
- Thermophysical Properties
- Aerothermal Screening – more limitations
- Downselection Methodology (i.e. scoring)
- Ground Testing – fewer limitations
- Post-Test
- Test limitations (Ground Test does not equal Flight)
- Ground to flight extrapolation theory
- What data to collect? How to tie measurements to test goals.
- Equilibrium versus non-equilibrium, char front, measurement at high temperature, etc.
- Discussion on thermophysical properties, NDE, and lab scale evaluations (emphasis on high temperature techniques)
- Facility table – places to get high temperature property testing
- TGA – overview
- DSC – overview
- Emissivity – overview
- CTE – overview
- Thermal conductivity – overview
- Micro-CT – overview
- FTIR – overview
- Thermomechanical – overview
- Specialty testing – permeability, pore pressure evolution, etc.
- Coupon to vehicle testing, overview - Pros and cons as you go up in test complexity.
- Oxy-Torch – Pros/Cons
- Arc – huels, pros/cons
- Arc – segmented, pros/cons
- Plasma jet – pros/cons
- HVOF – pros/cons
- Burner Rig/blowdown – pros/cons
- HTT – pros/cons
- Discussion on Aerothermal Screening
- What you can realistically achieve in a low-cost, high-throughput facility – a brief comparison
- Where do you compromise? (e.g. heating method – LHMEL vs plasma or quartz lamp, combustion products in HVOF and burner rigs?)
- “Easier” instrumentation – pyrometry, thermocouples, radiography, etc.
- Downselection Methodology
- How do I weigh what is important?
- How do my models’ sensitivity to each parameter play into this?
- Construct a scoring matrix
- Reconnect this to the development of objectives (the first Class) – in other words, your objectives should be ready to support this step
- Ground Testing
- Additional benefits of a larger (or more capable) facility. A brief comparison list.
- Overview of more measurement techniques: calorimetry, gas composition, shear, etc.
- Ground-to-Flight extrapolation theory (and weaknesses)
- Pre-test measurements
- Weight, size, blue light scan, CT, etc.
- CFD – pros/cons, why to model before test.
- In-test measurements
- Facility data, high speed video, TCs, Pyrometry, IR imagery, gas composition, photogrammetry, etc.
- Post-test measurements
- Destructive vs. non-destructive, weight, size, CT, etc.
- Microscopy, char depth, density gradients, CFD – post-test pros/cons
- Post-test Analysis
- My test is complete! Now what?
- Test uncertainty
- My model doesn’t match my test - unexpected results
- Challenging assumptions – 1D heating or not
- Challenging assumptions – equilibrium or not
- Identifying holes - where the model is ‘valid’ and not.
- Same conditions but different results. Possible causes
- Extrapolation – increases to uncertainty and error.
- Ground Testing shouldn’t be pass/fail!!!
- Post-test NDE for materials understanding (i.e. microscopy, CT/radiography, UT, etc.)
- Model predictions – pre vs. post test
- How to adjust a model
- Common adjustments
- Model limitations
- Empirical data fits
- Small sample size for data fits
- Thermal Protection System (TPS) definition and use
- Reusable vs. Single use
- Shape stable vs. shape changing
- Active vs. passive TPS
- Overview – single use TPS phenomena
- Pyrolysis modeling methods
- Recession modeling methods
- Chemical/Decomposition removal
- Mechanical removal
- Introduction to common software tools
- How test data is used in modeling
- Material properties
- Screening Tests
- Validation Tests (arc jet or similar)
- Module 1: Material Microstructure
- Objective: Set the physical stage for why microscale modeling is essential.
- Microstructure of carbon composites: (15 minutes)
- Carbon–carbon and carbon–phenolic: tow bundles, voids, matrix
- Anisotropy, porosity, and surface roughness introduced by ablative recession
- Microstructure of ultra-high temperature ceramics: (15 minutes)
- Oxide layer growth, liquid diffusion
- Impurities and defects
- Relevance to hypersonic conditions (10 minutes)
- Multi-scale analysis and modeling (10 minutes)
- Molecular beam experiments and finite-rate gas-surface chemistry (10 minutes)
- Module 2: Microstructure-resolved properties and mesoscale physics
- Objective: Simulate the true mesoscale surface structure and its effect on gas flow and ablation.
- Use of tomography to obtain realistic microstructures (5 minutes)
- Generating effective properties from the microstructures (25 minutes)
- Property tensor
- Property distribution functions
- Uncertainties and variabilities
- Coupled fluid-material evolution simulations at the microscale (15 minutes)
- Diffusion vs reaction-limited regimes
- Needling vs thinning
- Oxidation vs sublimation
- When does the microstructure play a role
- Discussion of open-source tools (10 minutes)
- Summary (5 minutes)
- Introduction to UQ and review of basic concepts (1 hour)
- The need for UQ in high-temperature materials research
- Opportunities and challenges
- Overview of state-of-the-art methods in high-temperature materials research
- Random variables and probability distributions
- Random vectors and processes
- Forward propagation of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis (1 hour)
- Monte Carlo sampling and estimators
- Local sensitivity analysis methods
- Global sensitivity analysis methods
- Bayesian inference (1 hour)
- Introduction to Bayes’ theorem
- The role of prior distributions
- Likelihood functions and noise modeling
- Posterior sampling algorithms and convergence diagnostics
- Review of state-of-the-art algorithms and recap (1 hour)
INSTRUCTORS
Mr. Charles Bersbach is an Engineering Fellow of Raytheon Missile and Defense at RTX Corporation, where he is a tech area lead in Mechanical Analysis and Test. With 25 years of experience in the aerospace and defense industry, Chuck has a proven track record in aerothermodynamics and thermal-structural design. Chuck is a recognized expert in assessing ground, captive carriage, and free flight environmental conditions.
Chuck holds a bachelor’s and master’s from Northern Arizona University in Mechanical Engineering. He is an AIAA Associate Fellow with an extensive network in the high-temperature testing world and expertise in that area.
Dr. Savio Poovathingal is an Associate Professor in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kentucky. He was previously a post-doctoral research scholar at the University of Michigan and received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Poovathingal specializes in developing computational tools to solve multi-scale problems in gas-surface interactions pertaining to hypersonic flows. During his career, he has developed numerical approaches for direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) and large-scale molecular dynamics calculations. He is an expert in high-fidelity analysis of simulations and experiments to develop physics-based models for CFD and other continuum methods, most notably developing a finite rate ablation model for hypersonic conditions. His current interests lie in investigating the coupling of the microscale material architecture and aerothermodynamics. His most recent work includes the development of novel simulation capabilities to study momentum and radiative energy transport, and consistent coupling of DSMC with other material response tools. He has published over 40 publications in diverse fields. He has received over $4M in research grants, advises 12 Ph.D. students, and is the recipient of the DARPA Young Faculty Award.
Dr. Alexandre Martin obtained a B.Sc. in Physics in 1998 from the University of Montréal (Québec, Canada), and a Master and Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal (Québec, Canada). He worked primarily on plasma ablation, with an application on industrial high-voltage circuit-breakers. After continuing this work as a Research Associate at École Polytechnique for a year, he then moved to the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), where he worked on the material response of atmospheric re-entry vehicles. Since January 2010, he is a faculty member in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY). His main research areas are entry physics, heat shield modeling, fluid dynamics and porous media. Dr. Martin has published more than 120 peer-reviewed archival journal and conference papers, and he is regularly invited to give presentations on ablation.
Dr. Anabel del Val is an Assistant Professor in the Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics Department at the University of Minnesota. Her expertise is in the development and application of stochastic methods to achieve robust predictive modeling of hypersonic and reacting flows. Her work lies at the intersection of uncertainty quantification, Bayesian inference, and high-fidelity modeling of high-speed flows, with a focus on developing predictive, validated models for gas–surface phenomena such as catalytic recombination and carbon ablation. del Val is the co-lead of the Uncertainty Quantification, Verification and Validation task of a multi-institutional PSAAP IV Center, contributing to the development of predictive exascale simulations of ablative geometries. She has led eMorts in multi-experiment Bayesian inference, enabling rigorous model calibration and uncertainty propagation across disparate test conditions and facilities. She has been invited to present her work at international venues including AIAA conferences and NASA research centers, and her methods have been adopted by the hypersonics community for use in CFD workflows. Dr. del Val holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium, and École Polytechnique in France.
Dr. Francesco Panerai is an Assistant Professor in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to Illinois, he was a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California. His research covers advanced materials for extreme environments, transport in porous media, and hypersonic aerothermodynamics. Francesco received his PhD and Research Masters in Aeronautics and Aerospace from von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Belgium) and a M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Perugia (Italy). He is recipient of the 2019 Air Force Young Investigator Award.
Mr. Ben Carmichael is the Director of Hypersonics at Kratos SRE, an applied research group within Kratos that specializes in the evaluation of materials intended for re-entry and hypersonic environments. Over 10 years, he has designed, fielded, and analyzed hundreds of high-enthalpy ground tests interrogating the aerothermal and ablative performance of materials. Ben holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alabama.
CLASSROOM HOURS / CEUs: 16 classroom hours / 1.6 CEU/PDH
COURSE DELIVERY AND MATERIALS
- The course lectures will be delivered via Zoom. Access to the Zoom classroom will be provided to registrants near to the course start date.
- All sessions will be available on-demand within 1-2 days of the lecture. Once available, you can stream the replay video anytime, 24/7.
- All slides will be available for download after each lecture. No part of these materials may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted, unless for course participants. All rights reserved.
- Between lectures during the course, the instructor(s) will be available via email for technical questions and comments.
Cancellation Policy: A refund less a $50.00 cancellation fee will be assessed for all cancellations made in writing prior to 5 days before the start of the event. After that time, no refunds will be provided.
Contact: Please contact Lisa Le or Customer Service if you have any questions about the course or group discounts.
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