Analysis of sand grain roughness effect on blunt reusable launch vehicle

The objective of this paper is to improve the performance of reusable launch vehicles (RLV) through the minimization of base drag. The X -33 scale down model selected for this study is numerically investigated using the Reynolds Average Navier Stokes equation with k- epsilon realizable turbulence model used to predict various drag like base drag and forebody drag. The results show that the increase in surface roughness leads to the minimized base drag of the launch vehicle up to 2%. The minimization of basedrag is used to decrease the fuel consumption, thermal issues and landing stability of reusable launching vehicle. The amount of drag increment achieved between 17% and 75% depends on the thickness. The novelty of the proposed work is to minimize the base drag of reusable launch vehicle using the sand grain roughness at different operating speeds. The proposed method can be applied for all types of launch vehicle and space related vehicles.