Ground-to-Flight Extrapolation of the Aerodynamic Coefficients of the VEGA Launcher

Autor: Nicolì, A., Imperatore, B., Marini, M., Pietro Catalano, Pizzicaroli, A., Perigo, D.
Rok vydání: 2006
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scopus-Elsevier
DOI: 10.2514/6.2006-3829
Popis: Launch vehicles are generally characterized by a flight trajectory which covers a wide envelope of Mach and Reynolds numbers ranging respectively from transonic to hypersonic and from million tens to tenths. The wind tunnel simulation of these extremely wide flight envelopes is an hard task, and extrapolation of the experimental aerodynamic coefficients to flight conditions is often required. In this report a CIRA experience in the ground to flight extrapolation process on launch vehicles will be presented with reference to the special case of the VEGA, a new European small launcher. The experimental characterization of the VEGA external aerodynamics was performed from M=0.5 to M=7 along the flight trajectory. The ground to flight extrapolation procedure adopted was supported by CFD computations performed by CIRA with the ZEN code. Several wind tunnel conditions were rebuilt, and numerical trends with Reynolds of the aerodynamic coefficients were computed. Both the wind tunnel tests measurements and the numerical simulations permitted the individuation of the trends with Reynolds number of the aerodynamic coefficients of the launcher. Final results of the extrapolation procedure are the aerodynamic coefficients expressed as analytical functions of the Reynolds number, that allowed the computation of the aerodynamics of the model geometry at launcher full scale conditions.
Databáze: OpenAIRE