NASA Awards Jacob Gissinger $206K to Study How Resins React at High Temperatures

As the next stage of the Artemis Moon exploration program moves closer to getting off the ground, NASA has awarded a $205,761 grant to Jacob Gissinger, assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Stevens Institute of Technology, to help its equipment better withstand the rigors of space travel.

Specifically, Gissinger and his team will work to predict how certain carbon-based resins can transform into graphite-like materials when exposed to extreme temperatures. 

Why high-temperature-resistant resins are high-priority

Resins are thick, sticky substances that, when hardened into solids, can be used in strong, heat-resistant products, such as materials that protect spacecraft during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. One important element in product design is the resin’s "graphitizability"—its ability to become more like graphite and serve as a heat barrier. 

"If you turn up the temperature high enough or wait long enough, any material made of pure carbon wants to turn into graphite," Gissinger explained. "However, this process is slow at room temperature, and its rate depends on the chemistry of the starting material. Good thing too, or we would have to worry about diamonds spontaneously turning into pencil lead! The ease of a material’s graphitization affects its mechanical and thermal properties used for heat shields—in other words, the ability of the thermal protection systems to get astronauts back home safely."

Uncovering easier ways to make stronger materials

Certain types of pure carbon materials can resist chemical changes even at extreme temperatures such as atmospheric reentry of a spacecraft when temperatures can reach nearly 5000°F. 

Instead of going through the time-consuming, costly process of manufacturing carbon-based resins, followed by the challenges of testing the products’ heat resistance, Gissinger and his team will create a detailed computer model to predict the degree to which a particular resin can graphitize. 

The team’s model will simulate real-life manufacturing processes to study the chemical structure of resins. They will test methods for transforming the resin into graphite-like structures, and test their virtual lab test results against real data, with the ultimate goal of improving how resins are made.

Completing two internships and a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at NASA sparked Jacob Gissinger’s interest in modeling the performance of aerospace-related materials. "Space is hard, and solving challenging problems is why I enjoy research," he said. "Developing a model for predicting the graphitizability of high-temperature resins is a natural, challenging extension of the work I did at NASA."

'Innovations that benefit humanity'

This research could revolutionize the creation of the stronger, longer-lasting, heat-resistant materials needed for everything from sports equipment and batteries to aircraft and NASA’s Artemis project to put humans on the Moon for the first time in 50 years—and, eventually, on Mars for the first time. 

"One of the key objectives of Artemis I’s 2022 flight was to test the heat shield of the Orion spacecraft, a capsule that can transport four crew members," Gissinger said. "The heat shield also carries a structural load, which saves weight, but it’s difficult to design and predict its behavior under operating conditions. After the mission, NASA did find unexpected erosion. My research aims to help explain this behavior and design materials that can withstand both ultra-high temperatures and higher mechanical loading." 

A successful computer model could also reveal design truths that then become rules of thumb for materials development, such as identifying a universal additive that could control graphitizability in high-temperature resins without sacrificing other important properties. 

Gissinger and his team will work with NASA’s Langley Research Center, where they have access to the ultra-high-temperature furnaces and other equipment needed to test these materials under extreme conditions. 

"Just like our mission at Stevens, NASA’s big-picture mission is to drive innovations that benefit humanity," Gissinger noted. "I hope this project inspires other researchers to tackle problems that once seemed beyond the reach of computational materials science."