Aerodynamic Heating Prediction of Flare-type Membrane Inflatable Reentry Vehicle from Low Earth Orbit

Aerodynamic heating around a flare-type membrane inflatable vehicle during Earth atmospheric reentry was investigated using numerical simulation approach. This vehicle, which is mainly composed of the capsule, membrane aeroshell and inflatable torus, has been developed by the Membrane Aeroshell for Atmospheric- entry Capsule (MAAC) group as a one of the innovative reentry systems. Analysis solver for reentry flows around the vehicle was RG-FaSTAR, which is a branch version of JAXA fast aerodynamic routine (FaSTAR). In addition, structure analysis solver also was used for membrane deformation in a loosely-coupled manner with the flow field. In the present research, the effects of angle of attack (AoA) and membrane aeroshell deformation on aerodynamic heating were investigated. The numerical results showed that heat flux distribution drastically varies with the increase in AoA because of changes of flow field, and heat flux value at the stagnation point for case of AoA of 40 degree was 3.09 times as high as that for 0 degree. Moreover, the deformed shapes for case of AoA of 0 and 40 degrees were calculated in the way which the pressure distributions obtained using initial (undeformed) shape were given as the aerodynamic force. The difference of heat fluxes between the deformed and initial shapes on the head capsule part was remarkable as 188.8% for case of AoA of 0 degree. On the other hand, it was indicated that membrane deformation for case of AoA of 40 degree insignificantly affects the peak heat flux value on the inflatable torus such as the case of the AoA of 0 degree