noun
- Plural of ablator; materials or substances that ablate (wear away or vaporize) when exposed to extreme heat, used especially in spacecraft heat shields and rocket nozzles.
Usage: technical; aerospace engineering
Examples
- The spacecraft's heat shield used advanced ablators to protect the crew during re-entry.
- Engineers selected ceramic ablators for the rocket engine nozzle to withstand extreme temperatures.
- Different ablators perform better under different thermal conditions.
- The ablators on the capsule gradually vaporized as it descended through the atmosphere.