Several pyrotechnic devices are employed over the course of satellite's missions, generally for the separation of structural subsystems and deployment of appendages. Firing of pyrotechnic devices results in impulsive loads characterized by high peak acceleration and high frequency content which can cause failures of various flight hardware elements and small components. Thus, accurate prediction of acceleration level in various components of spacecraft due to pyrotechnic devices is important. In this paper, two methods for pyroshock prediction, an empirical model and statistical energy analysis in conjunction with virtual mode synthesis, are applied to predict shock response of a low altitude earth observation satellite during launch vehicle separation. The predicted results are then evaluated through comparison with the shock test results.

Shock induced vibration can be more crucial in the mid frequency range where the dynamic couplings with structural parts and components play important roles. To estimate the behavior of structures in this frequency range where conventional analytical schemes, such as statistical energy analysis (SEA) and finite element analysis (FEA) methods may become inaccurate, many alternative methodologies have been tried up to date. This study presents an effective and practical method to accurately predict transient responses in the mid frequency range without having to resort to the large computational efforts. Specifically, the present study employs the more realistic frequency response functions (FRFs) from the energy flow method (EFM) which is a hybrid method combining the pseudo SEA equation (or SEA-Like equation) and modal information obtained by the finite element analysis (FEA). Furthermore, to obtain the time responses synthesized with modal characteristics, a time domain correction is practiced with the input force signal and the reference FRF on a position of the response subsystem. A numerical simulation is performed for a simple five plate model to show its suitability and effectiveness over the standard analytical schemes.

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