TY - GEN
T1 - Static wind tunnel testing of a legged venus lander
AU - O’Farrell, Clara
AU - Merrifield, Graham E.
AU - Rabinovitch, Jason
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. All rflights reserved.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - A static wind tunnel test was conducted to determine the static aerodynamic coeficients of the surface lander design proposed by the Venus In-Situ Atmospheric and Geochemical Explorer (VISAGE). The baseline design of the lander consists of a spherical pressure vessel with a top-mounted circular drag plate for aerodynamic deceleration, and three fixed landing legs. A modular subscale lander model, which allowed testing of several drag plate and landing leg configurations, was fabricated using rapid-prototyping techniques. The model was tested with four different drag plates and three different leg configurations, at a dynamic pressure of 1610 Pa and Mach number of 0.15. Testing was conducted using legs of varying diameter in order to determine the appropriate scaling of the results to Reynolds numbers representative of terminal descent at Venus. The static aerodynamic force (axial, normal, and side), and moment (rolling, pitching, yawing) coefficients for each lander configuration were determined as a function of model orientation. All model configurations were found to be statically stable in the range of total angles of attack considered (0 to 30 deg). However, the drag performance and degree of static stability of the model were dependent on the dihedral angle of the circular drag plate. The results will enable the creation of a preliminary aerodatabase for the VISAGE lander concept, and allow the effect of design changes on aerodynamic performance to be evaluated.
AB - A static wind tunnel test was conducted to determine the static aerodynamic coeficients of the surface lander design proposed by the Venus In-Situ Atmospheric and Geochemical Explorer (VISAGE). The baseline design of the lander consists of a spherical pressure vessel with a top-mounted circular drag plate for aerodynamic deceleration, and three fixed landing legs. A modular subscale lander model, which allowed testing of several drag plate and landing leg configurations, was fabricated using rapid-prototyping techniques. The model was tested with four different drag plates and three different leg configurations, at a dynamic pressure of 1610 Pa and Mach number of 0.15. Testing was conducted using legs of varying diameter in order to determine the appropriate scaling of the results to Reynolds numbers representative of terminal descent at Venus. The static aerodynamic force (axial, normal, and side), and moment (rolling, pitching, yawing) coefficients for each lander configuration were determined as a function of model orientation. All model configurations were found to be statically stable in the range of total angles of attack considered (0 to 30 deg). However, the drag performance and degree of static stability of the model were dependent on the dihedral angle of the circular drag plate. The results will enable the creation of a preliminary aerodatabase for the VISAGE lander concept, and allow the effect of design changes on aerodynamic performance to be evaluated.
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U2 - 10.2514/6.2017-3726
DO - 10.2514/6.2017-3726
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85085405023
SN - 9781624105036
T3 - 24th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference, 2017
BT - 24th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference, 2017
T2 - 24th AIAA Aerodynamic Decelerator Systems Technology Conference, 2017
Y2 - 5 June 2017 through 9 June 2017
ER -