Use of the Mars atmosphere to improve the performance of supersonic retropropulsion

Gonyea, Keir C.

Title:

Use of the Mars atmosphere to improve the performance of supersonic retropropulsion

dc.contributor.advisor	Braun, Robert D.
dc.contributor.author	Gonyea, Keir C.
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Jagoda, Jechiel I.
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Seitzman, Jerry M.
dc.contributor.committeeMember	German, Brian J.
dc.contributor.committeeMember	Auslender, Aaron H.
dc.contributor.department	Aerospace Engineering
dc.date.accessioned	2017-08-17T18:59:26Z
dc.date.available	2017-08-17T18:59:26Z
dc.date.created	2017-08
dc.date.issued	2017-05-23
dc.date.submitted	August 2017
dc.date.updated	2017-08-17T18:59:26Z
dc.description.abstract	NASA has landed seven vehicles on the surface of Mars using parachutes for supersonic descent. These parachutes are unsuited to future high mass missions due to inflation, drag, and aerothermodynamic complications. Supersonic retropropulsion is a candidate technology to replace supersonic parachutes, but is hindered by its large associated propellant mass. Atmospheric-breathing propulsion systems may reduce this mass constraint by ingesting oxidizer from the surrounding atmosphere. However, the Martian atmosphere, which is composed of primarily carbon dioxide, necessitates that metal fuels be used in order to combust the available oxidizer. This thesis advances the state of the art of atmospheric-breathing supersonic retropropulsion (ABSRP) by providing the first exploration into the feasibility and potential performance of ABSRP as a technology solution for high-mass Mars missions. Specific advancements include the development of modeling methods and tools, the evaluation of conceptual ABSRP performance and sensitivities, and the formulation of vehicle concepts. Model development targeted components and subsystems most relevant to ABSRP in order to capture the necessary physics and provide a preliminary integrated vehicle simulation for future conceptual design efforts. Models were developed to assess metal – CO2 combustion performance and sensitivity to both the engine design and operating regime. These tools include an equilibrium combustion simulation to evaluate engine efficiency, a finite-rate kinetics simulation to investigate the time-dependent phenomena, and a particle burning simulation to assess diffusion effects. Case studies are presented for ABSRP relevant mixtures and conditions to predict propulsion performance of the ABSRP engine across a range of conditions and verify that reasonably sized combustion chambers can provide complete combustion of the propellant. Exploration of the performance results indicate that ABSRP systems have promising propulsive performance relative to comparative rocket systems and do not have unacceptable burning timescale constraints. The propulsion system results are used in an ABSRP vehicle model, which accounts for the variable engine performance across different flight regimes. This model is used to search the design space and determine the performance and sensitivity of multiple proposed ABSRP vehicle concepts relative to competing propulsive solutions. The investigation includes an assessment of feasible and unfeasible regions of the design space in addition to design trends for optimal configurations. Mass favorable vehicles of multiple architectures are compared to understand their relative performance. Vehicle architectures involving ABSRP are seen to have optimal mass performance, which demonstrates the potential applicability of atmospheric-breathing propulsion for Mars descent.
dc.description.degree	Ph.D.
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/58669
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject	Mars
dc.subject	EDL
dc.subject	Supersonic retropropulsion
dc.subject	Space
dc.subject	Systems analysis
dc.title	Use of the Mars atmosphere to improve the performance of supersonic retropropulsion
dc.type	Text
dc.type.genre	Dissertation
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.corporatename	College of Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename	Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
local.relation.ispartofseries	Doctor of Philosophy with a Major in Aerospace Engineering
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication	a348b767-ea7e-4789-af1f-1f1d5925fb65
relation.isSeriesOfPublication	f6a932db-1cde-43b5-bcab-bf573da55ed6
thesis.degree.level	Doctoral