Fluid structure interaction of supersonic parachute with material failure

Abstract

The material damage of parachute may occur in parachutes at high speeds, and the growth of tearing may finally lead to failure of aerospace mission. In order to study the damage mechanism of parachute, a material failure model is proposed to simulate the failure of canopy fabric. The inflation process of supersonic parachute is studied numerically based on Arbitrary Lagrange Euler (ALE) method. The ALE method with material failure can predict the transient parachute shape with damage propagation as well as the flow characteristics in the parachute inflation process, and the simulated dynamic opening load is consistent with the flight test. The damage propagation mechanism of parachute is then investigated, and the effect of parachute velocity on the damage process is discussed. The results show that the canopy tears apart by the fast flow from the initial damaged area and the damaged canopy shape leads to the asymmetric change of the flow structure. With the increase of Mach number, the canopy tearing speed increases, and the tearing directions become uncertain at high Mach numbers. The dynamic load when damage occurs increases with the Mach number, and is proportional to the dynamic pressure above the critical Mach number.