Advanced Modeling of Fluid-Structure Interaction for Softgoods in Supersonic Flow
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Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Rabinovitch, Jason.
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The Mars 2020 rover has very strict contamination control requirements in order to prepare samples for a potential Mars Sample Return. It is known that the rover will out gas a low-level of molecular contaminant on the surface of Mars, and numerical simulations using STAR-CCM+ are performed in order to predict the magnitude of the contaminant deposition to the Martian surface in the vicinity of the rover. This is done in order to determine whether or not the M2020 rover could self-contaminate a potential sampling site if it were to remain in the same location for a long period of time. Simulations are performed under a variety of surface conditions, and it is determined that the predicted level of molecular contaminant deposition to the surface near the rover will not be a significant factor in the overall sample contamination budget.
A static wind tunnel test was conducted to determine the static aerodynamic coe cients of the surface lander design proposed by the Venus In-Situ Atmospheric and Geochemical Explorer (VISAGE). The baseline design of the lander consists of a spherical pressure vessel with a top-mounted circular drag plate for aerodynamic deceleration, and three xed landing legs. A modular subscale lander model, which allowed testing of several drag plate and landing leg con gurations, was fabricated using rapid-prototyping techniques. The model was tested with four di erent drag plates and three di erent leg con gurations, at a dynamic pressure of 1610 Pa and Mach number of 0.15. Testing was conducted using legs of varying diameter in order to determine the appropriate scaling of the results to Reynolds numbers representative of terminal descent at Venus. The static aerodynamic force (axial, normal, and side), and moment (rolling, pitching, yawing) coe cients for each lander con guration were determined as a function of model orientation. All model con gurations were found to be statically stable in the range of total angles of attack considered (0 to 30 deg). However, the drag performance and degree of static stability of the model were dependent on the dihedral angle of the circular drag plate. The results will enable the creation of a preliminary aerodatabase for the VISAGE lander concept, and allow the e ect of design changes on aerodynamic performance to be evaluated.