Author : K.V.Sreenivas Rao 1
Date of Publication :14th July 2017
Abstract: Safe re-entry of the spacecraft is one of the biggest challenges for the space engineers. Overheating of the surface of spacecraft is a major concern. A space vehicle re-entering the atmosphere must pass through Earth’s dense fluid medium at extremely high speeds. It results in the generation of a shock wave in front of the re-entering space vehicle. As the shock waves slam into the air molecules in front of the re-entering space vehicle, they go from cool, dormant state to an excited state, acquiring heat energy, which transfers to the metal object in contact. This results in the generation of very high temperatures i.e. up to 30000C. Surviving this temperature is impossible for conventional metals. So, composite materials are used in most parts of thermal protection system of a space vehicle. In this present work, CFD analysis using SolidWorks Flow Simulation software is made on the surface contour of the nose cone for three different materials. Heat flux and temperature generated on the surface of nose cone is compared to the three materials. Heat flux obtained from the CFD analysis is used to calculate the temperature that is transferred inside the crew cabin. From the analysis, we can conclude that Reinforced Carbon-Carbon is best suitable for nose cone of the space vehicle.
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