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Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
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ItemStructural impacts of inflatable aerodynamic decelerator design(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2020-05-17) Li, LinIn order to land larger payloads to Mars, more capable decelerators are required to advance beyond the performance limitations of traditional heritage entry, descent, and landing technologies. One potential technology is an inflatable aerodynamic decelerator (IAD), a flexible aeroshell that can be folded and stowed in a rocket fairing during launch and inflated prior to entry. IADs allow for larger drag areas with minimal mass increase in comparison to traditional rigid aeroshells and, thus, enable improved deceleration performance. However, minimal insight is available regarding the impact of detailed IAD configuration design on their structural performance. Future missions involving IADs will require this structural performance information early in the design cycle in order to develop IADs that have favorable structural and mass performance and are tailorable to specific mission requirements. This thesis advances the state of the art of inflatable aerodynamic decelerator design by investigating the implications of IAD configuration on their structural and mass performance and developing data analysis techniques to assess an IAD's global dynamic response. These methodologies and results improve future IAD design efforts by enabling estimates of structural performance information in conceptual design, exploring the configurational impacts of novel decelerator designs, and providing new test methodologies to better evaluate those designs. This research, therefore, starts to explore the next phases in the IAD development process, as inflatable decelerator technology maturation transitions from early-stage concept demonstration to applications on future missions that require expanded capabilities beyond the current configurational design space. In order to inform conceptual design efforts, simplified models of traditional stacked tori and tension cone decelerators are developed that strategically eliminate complexity in the IAD design to enable rapid simulation of the structural response. These computationally efficient models are used to evaluate the entire configurational design space and enable assessments of the IAD design on their structural and mass performance. A new hybrid decelerator is also developed, leveraging the benefits of the stacked tori and tension cone designs, to provide configurations that better balance mass efficiency with reduced deflection compared to the traditional stacked tori and tension cone designs. New data analysis methodologies are also developed to extract information on an IAD’s dynamic response from photogrammetry data. These methodologies allow for visualization of the global IAD dynamic response along with an evaluation of the frequency content of motion. The analysis routines are applied to existing photogrammetry data sets to highlight fundamental characteristics of the decelerator dynamic response and fluid-structure resonance phenomena.
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ItemDesign and manufacturing of conformal ablative heatshields(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-06-10) Sidor, Adam ThomasConformal ablators, first introduced in the early 2000s under the NASA Hypersonics Project, are a type of rigid ablative thermal protection system that uses flexible, rather than rigid, fibrous substrates. These materials are impregnated with resin in a mold to yield a part that is close to the final geometry and requires little post-process machining (a near net shape part). The lack of fiber connectivity through the thickness enables the TPS to tolerate larger strains than comparable rigid substrate ablators facilitating larger tiles and installation on most aeroshells without strain isolation. Reduced part count and simplified integration drive reductions in labor, cost and complexity –advancements which are enabling for planetary and human missions. Conformal ablators are currently fabricated using an open liquid impregnation process adapted from a technique developed for Lightweight Ceramic Ablators, such as Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator, which leads to design and manufacturing inefficiencies. This work advanced a new manufacturing technique for conformal ablators, vacuum infusion processing, that reduces resin consumption and streamlines clean up. The closed process also eliminates an expensive atmosphere-controlled oven or vacuum chamber. A design methodology, centered around a simulation of the mold filling process, was developed to tailor a conformal ablative heatshield to vacuum infusion processing. A constitutive model, combining properties of individual components, was formulated to estimate the properties of the composite TPS material. The methodology leverages this model, integrated with material selection, tile layout, and the mold filling simulation, to automate a conceptual conformal heatshield design. The approach allows rapid iteration on TPS composition and manufacturing constraints.
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ItemMagnetohydrodynamic energy generation and flow control for planetary entry vehicles(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-05-03) Ali, Hisham K.Proposed missions such as a Mars sample return mission and a human mission to Mars require landed payload masses in excess of any previous Mars mission. Whether human or robotic, these missions present numerous engineering challenges due to their increased mass and complexity. To overcome these challenges, new technologies must be developed, and existing technologies advanced. Resource utilization technologies are particularly critical in this effort. This thesis aims to study the reclamation and harnessing of vehicle kinetic energy through magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) interaction with the high temperature entry plasma. Potential mission designs, power generation and power storage configurations are explored, as well as uses for the reclaimed energy. Furthermore, the impact and utility of MHD flow interaction for vehicle control is assessed. The state of the art for analysis of MHD equipped planetary entry systems is advanced, with the specific goals including: development of performance analysis capabilities for potential MHD equipped systems, identification of systems or configurations that show promise as effective uses of MHD power generation, experimental designs for developing technologies applicable to MHD power generation systems, assessment of MHD flow interaction and beneficial use for entry vehicle control through drag modulation, and increasing the technology readiness level of MHD power generation architectures for entry, descent and landing.