CFD analysis and optimization of the sensor “MicroMED” for the ExoMars 2020 mission

Mongelluzzo, Giuseppe; Esposito, F.; Cozzolino, Fabio; Molfese, C.; Silvestro, S.; Franzese, Gabriele; Popa, C.; Lubieniecki, Marek; Cortecchia, Fausto; Saggin, Bortolino; Scaccabarozzi, Diego; Захаров, А. В.

doi:10.1016/j.measurement.2019.07.052

Cited by 16 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Moreover, a limited mass allocation of 500 g including electronics was made available for this instrument. The feasibility design of the MicroMED has already been reported in previous studies [9][10][11][12][13], evidencing the possibility from analysis to fulfill the design requirements of the mission with the available resources.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“MicroMED” Optical Particle Counter: From Design to Flight Model

Scaccabarozzi

Saggin

Somaschini

et al. 2020

Sensors

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MicroMED (Micro Martian Environmental Dust Systematic Analyzer (MEDUSA)) instrument was selected for the ExoMars 2020 mission to study the airborne dust on the red planet through in situ measurements of the size distribution and concentration. This characterization has never been done before and would have a strong impact on the understanding of Martian climate and Aeolian processes on Mars. The MicroMED is an optical particle counter that exploits the measured intensity of light scattered by dust particles when crossing a collimated laser beam. The measurement technique is well established for laboratory and ground applications but in order to be mounted on the Dust Suite payload within the framework of ExoMars 2020 mission, the instrument must be compatible with harsh mechanical and thermal environments and the tight mass budget of the mission payload. This work summarizes the thermo-mechanical design of the instrument, the manufacturing of the flight model and its successful qualification in expected thermal and mechanical environments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“MicroMED” Optical Particle Counter: From Design to Flight Model

Scaccabarozzi

Saggin

Somaschini

et al. 2020

Sensors

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“…The concept of MicroMED [9][10][11] was developed when ESA established to move the ExoMars lander mission into the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module (EDM) mission. MicroMED was conceived to satisfy the imposed stringent limitations in terms of mass, accommodation and power consumption.…”

Section: Micromed Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, MicroMED has to be tested in different temperature conditions, in particular to the limit temperature values to be met during the mission (− 20 °C, + 40 °C). Such aspect is key as the instrument temperature influences the instrument efficiency from a fluid dynamic point of view [9], plus both the laser and the pump ability to work properly throughout the temperature range of the instrument has to be checked.…”

Section: Test Set Up Finalization With Atsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous Thermal Simulator for EXOMARS-MicroMED Calibration

Russo¹,

Pagliocca²,

Esposito

et al. 2020

Adv. Astronaut. Sci. Technol.

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The paper presents the process innovation introduced by the Autonomous Thermal Simulator (ATS), in the development test campaign loop of space scientific equipment and devices. ATS is a special thermal simulator equipment originally designed to support the ground calibration of "MicroMED", a scientific instrument for the study of Martian environment that will be integrated on the lander of the ExoMars 2020 mission led by the European and Russian space agencies. The development activities of MicroMED before the flight require numerous tests in the laboratory both to calibrate the instrument and to verify its operations and performances under the same operating conditions foreseen during the operations on Mars. The ATS not only meets the specific functional and operational requirements of the development/calibration/set up tests of equipment destined for space missions similar to that of MicroMED but introduces a significant change of the overall testing process: for setting up the instruments, for its calibration, and finally for the qualification and validation. The rationale for introducing this change arises from the observation that the development of MicroMED-like equipment (being sensors, experiments or devices) to be installed on board space platforms, has testing requirements less stringent than the ones related to the spacecraft itself, since the operative environment is not the same. In addition, the execution of tests campaigns for development and qualification of space apparatus, using the conventional equipment/process, results to be money and time consuming, and-utmost important-not so flexible and manageable as the experimenter wishes it to be; one for all, the use of thermal vacuum chambers, which typically simulate the operative s/c external environment, is not always within everyone's reach and their reduced flexibility in any case impacts the rapid development times often necessary for the development of complex space systems. There is also a second aspect to be considered. The very delicate design of some experiments such as MicroMED, which is highly sensitive to temperature values, gradients and time-variations, especially around its inlet components used to collect Mars atmosphere and dust samples, requires its precise calibration. More specifically, the calibration must be carried out both at fixed temperature set points and along specified temperature time-profiles, with homogeneous temperature values at each instant. Well, if the fixed temperature set point can be easily simulated in most of thermo-vacuum chambers, the particularly demanding dynamic requirement cannot be reproduced in traditional test equipment because of their thermal inertial characteristics. ATS represents a unique apparatus that has the main advantage to closely surround the test hardware as a glove, thus guaranteeing suitable reach of abovementioned strict conditions. ATS leads to a significant change and process innovation in this context.

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“…The optical particle counter MicroMED (Figure 1) [1,2,3,4,5] is conceived to provide the first ever in situ measurements of airborne dust in Martian atmosphere. The sensor will be part of the upcoming ExoMars 2020 mission, and it is a miniaturized version of the sensor MEDUSA [6,7], previously developed at the INAF (Istituto Nazionale di AstroFisica) Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte (OAC) in Naples, Italy, where the characterization of dust in Earth and planetary atmospheres has been the main focus of the research activities for years [8,9,10,11,12,13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While crossing the sensing volume, dust grains scatter light differently depending on their size and speed, so the amplitude and duration of the signals are directly related to those characteristics of the dust grains. The instrument’s Elegant Breadboard was realized, and tests showed that the instrument could not detect large dust grains (15–20 µm in diameter) with high efficiency, especially in the presence of wind [1,2]. These results highlighted the need for a detailed fluid dynamic analysis of the instrument design in order to solve its criticalities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and CFD Analysis of the Fluid Dynamic Sampling System of the “MicroMED” Optical Particle Counter

Mongelluzzo

Esposito

Cozzolino

et al. 2019

Sensors

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MicroMED is an optical particle counter that will be part of the ExoMars 2020 mission. Its goal is to provide the first ever in situ measurements of both size distribution and concentration of airborne Martian dust. The instrument samples Martian air, and it is based on an optical system that illuminates the sucked fluid by means of a collimated laser beam and detects embedded dust particles through their scattered light. By analyzing the scattered light profile, it is possible to obtain information about the dust grain size and speed. To do that, MicroMED’s fluid dynamic design should allow dust grains to cross the laser-illuminated sensing volume. The instrument’s Elegant Breadboard was previously developed and tested, and Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) analysis enabled determining its criticalities. The present work describes how the design criticalities were solved by means of a CFD simulation campaign. At the same time, it was possible to experimentally validate the results of the analysis. The updated design was then implemented to MicroMED’s Flight Model.

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CFD analysis and optimization of the sensor “MicroMED” for the ExoMars 2020 mission

Cited by 16 publications

References 21 publications

“MicroMED” Optical Particle Counter: From Design to Flight Model

“MicroMED” Optical Particle Counter: From Design to Flight Model

Autonomous Thermal Simulator for EXOMARS-MicroMED Calibration

Design and CFD Analysis of the Fluid Dynamic Sampling System of the “MicroMED” Optical Particle Counter

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