DETERMINING THE FORCE LOAD EXERTED BY GAS JETS ON OBSTACLE SURFACES USING THE MOLECULE TRAJECTORY TRACKING METHOD

Abstract

The design of spacecraft and rockets is impossible without predicting dynamic loads on their surface, simulating the aerodynamics of flow about them, or analyzing the adverse effects of the environment on them. The correct determination of the force exerted by propulsion system plums on spacecraft will considerably reduce the risk of partial or full disfunction of spacecraft materials and devices, thus extending the spacecraft service life. Because of this, a search for efficient methods of aerodynamic calculation of gas jet flows over a wide range of flow conditions and determining the force exerted by them on spacecraft units is an important current problem.

This paper is concerned with an aerodynamic calculation of sonic and supersonic gas jet flows into a vacuum and determining the force exerted by them on obstacles. The goal of this study is the use of the statistical method of molecule trajectory simulation to determine the force exerted by rarefied gas jets on obstacles.

Use is made of the test particle method (TPM) to track molecules in their interaction with obstacles and one another as a part of a combined approach. Combining methods for solving continual aerodynamics equations (inside and near the nozzle where the flow is continual) and the TPM (where the flow of the medium is described at a molecular-kinetic level) allows one to solve problems of arbitrarily rarefied jet outflows. By comparing the calculated distributions of the force exerted by a jet flow on solid surfaces with direct simulation Monte Carlo data and analytical and experimental data on supersonic axial flow about a cone and sonic flow past a plate at different angles to the flow axis, the efficacy of the TPM algorithm as a part of the combined approach is confirmed. The use of continual aerodynamics equations considerably extends the TPM capabilities. The applicability range of the TPM both taken alone and as a part of the combined approach is determined. The TPM advantages in saving the computational resources and computational time are confirmed: they are a fraction of those of the direct simulation Monte Carlo method.

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