30th Congress of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences

02.2 - Experimental Aerodynamics

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF GEOMETRIC VARIATIONS EFFECT ON THE FLOW PATTERNS ON A HAMMERHEAD SATELLITE LAUNCH VEHICLE

J.G. Medeiros, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brazil; A.C. Avelar, Instituto de Aeronautica e Espaço, Brazil; J.B.P. Falcão Filho, Instituto de Aeronáutica e Espaço, Brazil

In spite of being a non-conventional shape the hammerhead-type fairing is rather common on satellite launchers vehicle as a consequence of the demand to accommodate spacecraft with a diameter larger than the last boosting stage, and also because, eventually, it is necessary to use existing rockets components. The hammerhead-type is the case of the first Brazilian Satellite Launch Vehicle (VLS-1).rnIn present paper, the influence of frustum cone angle, an adapting boat-tail section called here boat-tail angle, in a 1:37 scaled model of VLS-1 fairing, is investigated in a transonic wind tunnel for Mach number values ranging from 0.6 to 1.1 and angles of attack of 0 and 5 degrees. The techniques of Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) and Schlieren flow visualization are used in this analysis. Drag coefficients will be measured as well. The measurements were conducted in a Transonic Wind Tunnel (TTP) located in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil.rnFrom the results obtained it was observed that the geometry with the boat tail angle of 8 degrees yields the lowest drag level. However, interestingly, the boat-tail geometry that produced the lowest pressure gradients was the one with angle of 90 degrees. The techniques used shown to very efficient for studying complex phenomena in the transonic region and a methodology for studying complex geometry was established in TTP.rn


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