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GALCIT Colloquium

Friday, May 25, 2012
3:00pm to 4:00pm
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Guggenheim 133 (Lees-Kubota Lecture Hall)
Fluid-Structure Interaction Modeling of Spacecraft Parachutes
Tayfun Tezduyar, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Rice University ,
FSI modeling of spacecraft parachutes involves computational challenges beyond those in a typical FSI problem. This presentation will focus on how we are addressing those challenges. Because spacecraft parachutes are large, the structure is light compared to the air masses involved and very sensitive to changes in the fluid forces. The direct coupling methods we developed for nonmatching fluid and structure grids yield robust techniques for such FSI computations. The parachute is constructed from "rings" and "sails" with hundreds of gaps and slits, and we are addressing this geometric-complexity challenge with the homogenization method we developed. These parachutes will be used in clusters of two or three, and the contact between them is a challenge we are addressing with the contact algorithm we developed. The presentation will show how we are helping NASA with parachute design and testing.

This is a joint work with Professor Kenji Takizawa (Waseda University, Tokyo).

For more information, please contact Xin Ning by phone at 626-395-3073 or by email at xning@caltech.edu.