Pampero HiFi: improvements in mechanical and fluid–structure interaction modeling for a spacecraft-oriented code

Abstract This work presents the latest improvements of the mechanical modeling in the scope of the atmospheric reentry code. First, the enhancements and optimizations of the mechanical module of the third version of the code , based on finite element analysis, are presented. The reentry of a satellite computed with both the thermal and mechanical fragmentations in estimates that mechanical fragmentation events do occur around 90 km. This observation challenges the assumption usually made in reentry tools that consider a purely thermal degradation during reentry. Reinforced by these results, CNES and R.Tech start the development of fluid and mechanical models for their integration in the high-fidelity version of the reentry code . In , the fluid domain is computed using the CFD module , which solves Euler equations on an automatically generated grid coupled with an immersed boundary method. Fluid–structure interactions are computed using the loose coupling between and _. A first validation of this tools is presented. The validation is done on two cases: the rebuilding of free-flight wind tunnel tests, where rigid bodies’ motion are observed, and the fluid–structure interactions generated by an oscillating deformable plate exposed to a hypersonic flow. In both cases, the dynamic is accurately assessed regarding the fidelity of the models. Also, having the stress field computed represents a major advantage of the present tool.