Skip to main content
NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division World-class modeling, simulation, and supercomputing in support of the NASA mission

Fluid-Structure Interaction Simulations of Supersonic Parachute Inflation

AMS Seminar Series

Speaker: François Cadieux, Computational Aerosciences Branch, NASA Ames Research Center

Presentation

Seminar Slide Deck (PDF-10.7MB)

Abstract

NASA has three upcoming interplanetary robotic exploration missions for which parachutes are a critical component: Mars Sample Return (Mars 2028), DaVinci (Venus 2031), and DragonFly (Titan, 2034). NASA’s Entry Systems Modeling project is funding research and development toward improving our understanding of parachutes and our ability to predict their behavior during inflation where peak loads occur and where the parachute is most likely to fail. As part of this effort, the Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) team is developing the capability to simulate supersonic parachute inflation. To validate and improve this new capability, we perform fluid-structure interaction (FSI) simulations of the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiments' (ASPIRE) third flight test (SR03), which helped certify the Mars 2020 (Perseverance) parachute, for which load pin and accelerometer data is available along with high-speed imagery. We investigate the effects of refining the parachute structural model, the effect of modeling the deceleration of the whole system, and the effect of the initial assumed shape and cross-sectional area of the parachute through several FSI simulations. Results demonstrate improved agreement with the ASPIRE SR03 flight test as the model fidelity is increased. The combined improvements bring the FSI predictions within flight-to-flight variability in many respects.

This work is supported by NASA’s Entry Systems Modeling (ESM) project.

Biography

Photo of François Cadieux
François Cadieux is an aerospace engineer working in the Computational Aerosciences Branch of the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division at NASA's Ames Research Center. He received the Space Flight Awareness Artemis I Honoree award in 2022 and the NASA Early Career Public Achievement Medal in 2018 for enhancing the safety and success of the Orion Launch Abort System through high-fidelity computational aero-acoustic predictions of the QM-1 test, supersonic ascent abort flight test (AA-2) as well as various other launch abort scenarios. Cadieux joined the Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics (LAVA) team in September 2016, where he is one of the developers of the Cartesian module of the LAVA simulation software framework. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University under the supervision of Prof. Rajat Mittal from 2015 to 2016 where his research focused on wall-modeled large-eddy simulation (LES) for separated flows. Cadieux obtained a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the University of Southern California in 2015 where he worked with Prof. Julian A. Domaradzki on quantifying the effects of numerical dissipation in coarse grid LES.