Plume exhaust from lander engines would be of concern when landing on the surface of Europa since it could have detrimental effects on both the landing surface and powered descent vehicle. The plume could also entrain particles and redirect them up toward the landing vehicle, as well as erode and contaminate the surface where science would be conducted. In this work, a numerical methodology is developed and validated to conduct a first-order assessment of individual engine plumes of a potential Europa Lander vehicle. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used to solve the flow field inside and immediately downstream of the nozzle, while the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is applied further downstream where the flow becomes rarefied. An interface between the two domains is defined where macroscopic flow data is passed from the CFD domain to the DSMC domain, establishing a one-way coupling. Plume pressure and velocity fields, as well as ground heating, pressure and density flux profiles, are obtained at altitudes from 25 m down to 10 m, spanning the final stages of landing. The codes and methodologies used in this study are successfully validated with simulations conducted by Morris et al. of the Apollo Lunar Module Descent Engine (LMDE) exhaust plume impinging onto the lunar surface.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Numerical Study of Lander Engine Plume Impingement on the Surface of Europa


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    JANNAF Exhaust Plume and Signatures Conference ; 2019 ; Dayton, OH, United States


    Publication date :

    2019-06-03


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    Numerical Study of Lander Engine Plume Impingement on the Surface of Europa

    Lam, Rebekah / Maghsoudi, Elham / Hoey, William | NTRS | 2019


    Numerical Study of Lander Engine Plume Impingement on the Surface of Europa

    Hoey, William / Maghsoudi, Elham / Lam, Rebekah | NTRS | 2019


    Numerical study of lander engine plume impingement on the surface off Europa

    Hoey, William / Maghsoudi, Elham / Lam, Rebekah | NTRS | 2019


    Numerical study of lander engine plume impingement on the surface of Europa

    Hoey, William / Maghsoudi, Elham / Lam, Rebekah | NTRS | 2019


    Europa Lander Engine Plume Interactions with the Surface and Vehicle

    Hoey, William A. / Lam, Rebekah L. / Wong, Anthony T. et al. | IEEE | 2020