OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY

Great thanks goes to my advisor Graham Candler, who gave me a chance to prove myself in graduate school, to Ioannis Nompelis who fueled my interest in the simulation sciences, and all of the colleagues from whom I harvested much useful knowledge and expertise. i Dedication To my sweet wife Bonnie. ii A method is developed for performing simulations that contain fluid-structure interac-tions between deployable decelerators and a high speed compressible flow. The prob-lem of coupling together multiple physical systems is examined with discussion of the strength of coupling for various methods. A non-monolithic strongly coupled option is presented for fluid-structure systems based on grid deformation. A class of algebraic grid deformation methods is then presented with examples of increasing complexity. The strength of the fluid-structure coupling is validated against two analytic problems, chosen to test the time dependent behavior of structure on fluid interactions, and of fluid on structure interruptions. A one-dimentional material heating model is also validated against experimental data. Results are provided for simulations of a wind tunnel scale disk-gap-band parachute with comparison to experimental data. Finally, a simulation is performed on a flight scale tension cone decelerator, with examination of time-dependent material stress, and heating. iii Contents Acknowledgements