Inflatable heatshield doesn't seem to work?

[dlrk]

The inflatable heatshields don't appear to do much, or anything. The parts completely protected behind the shield get almost as hot as the shield itself. Is this normal, and there is some trick to using inflatable shields, or this a mod conflict (perhaps deadly reeentry?)

https://imgur.com/a/Rjkccq2

Edited May 19, 2021 by dlrk

[jimmymcgoochie]

After repeated aerobraking and re-entry attempts through Eve’s atmosphere yesterday I can conform that the inflatable heat shield does what it’s supposed to and protects everything behind it.

Try attaching the shield to something with high thermal tolerance to add a layer of insulation between the shield itself and what you’re trying to shield, that will reduce the conduction from the hot shield to the sensitive parts beneath. As RO/RP-1 showed me, attaching heat shields directly to parts that can’t take much heat resulted in those parts melting from conducted heat while the heat shield itself was fine, so I suspect deadly re-entry is having a bit of an effect.

[king of nowhere]

5 hours ago, dlrk said:

The inflatable heatshields don't appear to do much, or anything. The parts completely protected behind the shield get almost as hot as the shield itself. Is this normal, and there is some trick to using inflatable shields, or this a mod conflict (perhaps deadly reeentry?)

https://imgur.com/a/Rjkccq2

from your image, i also get the impression that there is another part clipping through the heat shield, and therefore not protected.

otherwise, heat shields work normally

[dlrk]

Is there a way to visualize the heat distribution?

[dlrk]

Yep, putting a heatshield behind the inflatable heathsield helped

[king of nowhere]

38 minutes ago, dlrk said:

Is there a way to visualize the heat distribution?

alt-f12 opens the cheat/debug menu. among the various options are physics-heat. go there for options

[dlrk]

It seems like the shield isn't protecting the legs attached to fuel tank. It protects the engines, tank and everything stacked above it, but the legs heat up. They aren't clipping into either shield.

[dlrk]

The heat transfer is convection, I can tell by toggling with the F12 menu. Does that tell us anything?