Analytical Modeling of Supersonic Retropropulsion Plume Structures

Advancing Supersonic Retropropulsion Using Mars-Relevant Flight Data: An Overview

“…To aid ongoing CFD efforts, an analytical modeling technique was developed for SRP-specific flow plume structures, providing insight to aid more computationally-expensive, higher-fidelity analyses. 10 This technique was shown to effectively determine plume structure and resulting bow shock structure for single and three nozzle SRP configurations. Higher-fidelity computation methods were shown to agree favorably with these analytical approaches for zero angle of attack configurations in Mach 2 freestream flow.…”

“…SRP technology efforts in the past decade have been aeroscience dominated and focused on understanding aerodynamic-propulsive flowfield interactions during supersonic conditions. [10][11][12][13][14] Systems analysis, computational fluid dynamics simulations, and small-scale wind-tunnel testing [15][16] have not identified any propulsive-aerodynamic interaction showstoppers for this technology. Blunt body aeroshell configurations have been the focus of this work.…”

“…[13][14] Recent computational and experimental efforts have demonstrated that, in Mars relevant conditions, thrust requirements are sufficiently high to render the aerodynamic axial force contribution negligible. [10][11][12][13][14] For these cases, there is little uncertainty on the total deceleration afforded by SRP. On the other hand, for thrust coefficients significantly below that required for steady-state deceleration in flight relevant conditions, uncertainty remains and flow stability issues are observed.…”

An Analytical Approach to Modeling Supersonic Retropropulsion Flow Field Components

“…However, the work by Skeen does not model the flow field structure directly [18]. Cordell and Braun [19] showed that independent plume flow for multiple nozzle configurations could be modeled by leveraging past analytical works for plume terminal shock location [20] and the plume boundary [14]. Flow conditions related to the SRP environment, including both jet flow and freestream conditions, allow for determination of relevant boundary conditions in the determination of the plume structure [19].…”

“…The work presented in this paper will extend the approach of Cordell and Braun [19] to create a modeling environment for generating full SRP flow field structures for peripheral configurations, including both plume and bow shock structures. For this analysis, it will be assumed that the vehicle is at zero angle of attack with a supersonic freestream.…”