Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Parametric Study of an Experimental Rocket's Drag in Transonic Flow
Submission Author:
Pedro Lacerda Montes , DF
Co-Authors:
Pedro Lacerda Montes, Vinicius Alves, Guilherme Luis Takahashi de Carvalho
Presenter: Pedro Lacerda Montes
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-1895
Abstract
This paper presents a study aimed at reducing the drag generated by the nosecone of an experimental rocket that operates in the transonic regime. The motivation behind the research was the lack of references on the influence of the fineness ratio of the nosecone on the drag of rockets in the transonic regime. The research is relevant for future projects as experimental rocketry teams often design rockets that operate in this flow regime. The authors used a parametric study, employing the commercial CFD software, ANSYS Fluent, to calculate the drag generated by a Von Karman shaped nosecone. The parameter varied was the fineness ratio of the nosecone, which ranged from 1 to 3 with intervals of 0.5, and the observed parameter was the total drag generated by the nosecone. The simulations showed that the ideal fineness ratio to minimize the drag generated by the nosecone in these conditions is around 2.5 and this conclusion is reinforced by analyzing the trends of the viscous and pressure drags. However, when compared to the total drag generated by the rocket, the improvement achieved by adjusting the fineness ratio of the nosecone is not significant. The best case scenario results in less than 5% reduction in drag, while the improvement compared to other cases is less than 1%. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of the influence of the fineness ratio of the nosecone on the drag of rockets in the transonic regime. While the results showed some improvement, the study suggests that there may be other factors that play a more significant role in drag reduction for experimental rockets. Therefore, the findings of this study can serve as a reference for future designs. The authors suggest that further experiments in a wind tunnel are necessary to validate the results obtained numerically in this work
Keywords
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), drag reduction, experimental rocket
