Fluid–structure interaction modeling of clusters of spacecraft parachutes with modified geometric porosity

To increase aerodynamic performance, the geometric porosity of a ringsail spacecraft parachute canopy is sometimes increased, beyond the “rings” and “sails” with hundreds of “ring gaps” and “sail slits.” This creates extra computational challenges for fluid–structure interaction (FSI) modeling of cl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Computational mechanics 2013-12, Vol.52 (6), p.1351-1364
Main Authors: Takizawa, Kenji, Tezduyar, Tayfun E., Boben, Joseph, Kostov, Nikolay, Boswell, Cody, Buscher, Austin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Classical and Continuum Physics
Clusters
Computation
Computational Science and Engineering
Contact
Engineering
Finite element method
Fluid-structure interaction
Gaps
Interaction models
Mathematical models
Original Paper
Parachute canopies
Parachutes
Porosity
Sails
Slits
Space ships
Space vehicles
Spacecraft
Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
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Summary:To increase aerodynamic performance, the geometric porosity of a ringsail spacecraft parachute canopy is sometimes increased, beyond the “rings” and “sails” with hundreds of “ring gaps” and “sail slits.” This creates extra computational challenges for fluid–structure interaction (FSI) modeling of clusters of such parachutes, beyond those created by the lightness of the canopy structure, geometric complexities of hundreds of gaps and slits, and the contact between the parachutes of the cluster. In FSI computation of parachutes with such “modified geometric porosity,” the flow through the “windows” created by the removal of the panels and the wider gaps created by the removal of the sails cannot be accurately modeled with the Homogenized Modeling of Geometric Porosity (HMGP), which was introduced to deal with the hundreds of gaps and slits. The flow needs to be actually resolved. All these computational challenges need to be addressed simultaneously in FSI modeling of clusters of spacecraft parachutes with modified geometric porosity. The core numerical technology is the Stabilized Space–Time FSI (SSTFSI) technique, and the contact between the parachutes is handled with the Surface-Edge-Node Contact Tracking (SENCT) technique. In the computations reported here, in addition to the SSTFSI and SENCT techniques and HMGP, we use the special techniques we have developed for removing the numerical spinning component of the parachute motion and for restoring the mesh integrity without a remesh. We present results for 2- and 3-parachute clusters with two different payload models.
ISSN:0178-7675
1432-0924
DOI:10.1007/s00466-013-0880-5