Fluid-structure interaction study of the supersonic parachute using large-eddy simulation
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to model the dynamic characteristics of an opened supersonic disk-gap-band parachute.
Design/methodology/approach
A fluid-structure interaction (FSI) method with body-fitted mesh is used to simulate the supersonic parachute. The compressible flow is modeled using large-eddy simulation (LES). A contact algorithm based on the penalty function with a virtual contact domain is proposed to solve the negative volume problem of the body-fitted mesh. Automatic unstructured mesh generation and automatic mesh moving schemes are used to handle complex deformations of the canopy.
Findings
The opened disk-gap-band parachute is simulated using Mach 2.0, and the simulation results fit well with the wind tunnel test data. It is found that the LES model can successfully predict large-scale turbulent vortex in the flow. This study also demonstrates the capability of the present FSI method as a tool to predict shock oscillation and breathing phenomenon of the canopy.
Originality/value
The contact algorithm based on the penalty function with a virtual contact domain is proposed for the first time. This methodology can be used to solve the negative volume problem of the dynamic mesh in the flow field.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was co-supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11272345), Funding of Jiangsu Innovation Program for Graduate Education (KYLX16_0402) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. They are gratefully acknowledged by the author.
Citation
Yang, X., Yu, L. and Zhao, X.-S. (2018), "Fluid-structure interaction study of the supersonic parachute using large-eddy simulation", Engineering Computations, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 157-168. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-06-2016-0195
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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