2.5 Heatshield Exploded due to overheating.

[Kerbart]

Please people all I want is an in-game explanation of why the heatshield might explode while carrying lots of ablator. Even a warning that it can happen and why, in the heatshield description, would be better than unplanned disassembly on decent.

Let's see. Heatshield description: Maximum temperature 3400K. You exceeded the maximum temperature. What do you expect? That it survives that?

The heat shield does two things:

1) It can withstand a much higher temperature than other parts, which is really useful for re-entry. But there are limits to that, and you learned what does limits are.

2) It prevents the buildup of heat to be transfered beyond the shield. If the only objective was (1) you could make a shield out of tungsten or depleted uranium (although the weight would be a serious problem). The problem is though, that as the heat shield heats up it's going to transfer that heat to the rest of the vessel, which is undesirable. This is where the ablator comes in; it carries the heat away from the ship.

In game explanation: you exceeded the maximum temperature your heatshield can handle.

[ExplorerKlatt]

It's in the notes for the 1.03 release. Didn't you read them?

Yes I read them, but I don't always see or remember everything; which is the reason I asked where it was.

After re-reading the notes I did see the above mentioned quote. I also found this:

* Added a factor to simulate the switch from laminar to turbulent flow (in layman's terms, if you're going too fast too low, you get a massive boost to heating). That corrects so steep reentries are in fact deadlier than shallow ones.

You are right, it is a game. It is a game that uses a semi-realistic simulation of physics; therefore when you ask a question about why something happens in game, you will get answers that relate to real life physics.

Edited June 29, 2015 by ExplorerKlatt

[Zeo]

Its a game. The problem is with the game. It's not behaving like one would expect a game to behave. How do you people manage to keep confusing the two?

Please don't make assumptions about my education. Unlike Vladimir Komarov i don't have a parachute problem.

Am i going over 9000 m/s on re-entry? Plasma? I don't think so.

Please people all I want is an in-game explanation of why the heatshield might explode while carrying lots of ablator. Even a warning that it can happen and why, in the heatshield description, would be better than unplanned disassembly on decent.

At least in my game there is a visual plasma trail when air gets hot upon entering atmosphere. It doesn't look very realistic at the moment but it is there. Add a tiny bit of imagination to fill the gaps and you even get com blackouts while landing just like in real life (jeb is too cool for tdrss!).

I don't understand what you mean by 9km/s, referring to Mach ~25 re-entry speeds in real life perhaps? Afaik there's more factors than just orbital velocity when determing how much particular gas ionizes during re-entry, who knows what the air in Kerbin is made off? I think the important thing is, like I said, that things in KSP aren't scaled to match real world exactly. There is more re-entry heat compared to Earth for gameplay reasons, Squad even turned the whole system into a difficulty setting. That is why we need heatshields even though we are moving at barely hypersonic velocities when entering tiny Kerbin.