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Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica ›› 2025, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (1): 630369.doi: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2024.30369

• Special Topic: Flexible Aerodynamic Deceleration Technologies • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Transonic/supersonic aerodynamic characteristics and fluid-structure interaction mechanism of flexible parachutes for planetary exploration

He JIA1,2, Wei JIANG2, Wenlong BAO2, Xin XU2, Wei RONG2, Li YU1()   

  1. 1.College of Aerospace Engineering,Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics,Nanjing 210016,China
    2.Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity,Beijing 100094,China
  • Received:2024-03-11 Revised:2024-05-22 Accepted:2024-07-08 Online:2025-01-15 Published:2024-07-24
  • Contact: Li YU E-mail:yuli_happy@nuaa.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(11972192)

Abstract:

Further missions of China’s planetary exploration projects to the Venus, the Jupiter and others have been initiated, and the key technical research is underway. However, these planets have significantly different atmospheric environments from those of the Earth and the Mars, with dense atmospheres and higher atmospheric pressures. Previous successful planetary explorations reveal that the aerodynamic deceleration process in such complex planetary atmospheric environments requires multi-stage parachutes and transonic/supersonic conditions for parachute opening and operation. Meanwhile, the nominal diameter of the first stage guide parachute is significantly smaller than that of the main parachute and the forebody diameter. With few related research reports, the fluid structure interaction mechanism and the aerodynamic characteristics between two-stage parachutes of different sizes and the forebody are still unclear. In this research, based on conical ribbon parachutes and disk-band-gap parachutes suitable for dense atmospheric planetary exploration missions, the fluid structure interaction mechanism of flexible parachutes in different planetary atmospheric environments is numerically studied using the immersion boundary method, and the aerodynamic characteristics with different freestream Mach numbers, canopy types, atmospheric components, and parameter to diameter ratios are investigated.Results show that in the atmospheric environment of the Titan, the conical ribbon canopy (with a diameter ratio of 0.3) steadily descends at transonic speeds, and the projected area of the canopy increases over time. The drag coefficient reaches its maximum at Mach number 1.5, while its fluctuation monotonically increases with the increase of the Mach number. In addition, at Mach number 0.95, the canopies exhibit extremely severe oscillation when the diameter ratios are 0 and 1. In contrast, in the atmospheric environment of the Jupiter, when the freestream Mach number is transonic, the change in the projected area of the conical ribbon canopy becomes smaller over time. The drag coefficient and its fluctuation will monotonically increase with the increase of the Mach number, and the lateral force coefficient and its fluctuation reach their maximum at Mach number 1.5. Finally, a comparison is made between the stable descent process of parachutes in the atmospheric environments of the Titan, the Venus, and the Jupiter, showing that the conical ribbon canopy in the Jupiter atmospheric environment has the best performance, a larger drag coefficient, and better stability.

Key words: deep space exploration, transonic/supersonic parachutes, aerodynamic characteristics, fluid-structure interaction mechanism, aerodynamic decelerating technology

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