EFFECT OF BASE FLOW AND TURBULENCE ON THE SEPARATION MOTION OF STRAP-ON ROCKET BOOSTERS

기저부 유동 및 난류가 다단 로켓의 단 분리 운동에 미치는 영향

Turbulent flow analysis is conducted around the multi-stage launch vehicle including base region and detachment motion of strap-on boosters due to resultant aerodynamic forces and gravity is simulated. Aerodynamic solution procedure is coupled with rigid body dynamics for the prediction of separation behavior. An overset mesh technique is adopted to achieve maximum efficiency in simulating relative motion of bodies and various turbulence models are implemented on the flow solver to predict the aerodynamic forces accurately. At first, some preliminary studies are conducted to show the importance of base flow for the exact prediction of detachment motion and to find the most suitable turbulence model for the simulation of launch vehicle configurations. And then, developed solver is applied to the simulation of KSR-III, a three-stage sounding rocket researched in Korea. From the analyses, after-body flow field strongly affects the separation motions of strap-on boosters. Negative pitching moment at initial stage is gradually recovered and a strap-on finally results in a safe separation, while fore-body analysis shows collision phenomena between core rocket and booster. And a slight variation of motion is observed from the comparison between inviscid and turbulent analyses. Change of separation trajectory based on viscous effects is just a few percent and therefore, inviscid analysis is sufficient for the simulation of separation motion if the study is focused only on the movement of strap-ons.