Propulsive forces and moments during powered descent are not understood well enough to design an entry, decent, and landing vehicle with high confidence using solely computational fluid dynamics modelling (CFD). Therefore, wind tunnel testing is required to quantify uncertainties in computational modeling and simulation. Wind tunnel balances are structural, high-precision, multi-axis force transducers that provide direct measurement of these aerodynamic forces and moments, however their complex designs make them costly and time consuming to produce and approaches used to manufacture them have not changed significantly since the 1960s. This work demonstrates that additive manufacturing (AM) can be used to manufacture wind tunnel balances with significantly reduced fabrication time and expense. Moreover, the design flexibility afforded by the additive manufacturing process has the potential to enable new capabilities with respect to measuring propulsion forces during entry, decent, and landing testing. Here we present two novel balance designs enabled by AM. One will provide direct measurement of aerodynamic interference forces and moments on powered descent models (retropropulsion forces) to support CFD validation and further development of Mars human landing vehicle concepts. The second design will be used to characterize a reaction control system during entry descent and landing testing over a wide Mach number range.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Additively Manufactured Wind Tunnel Balances for Propulsive Force Measurement


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    JANNAF Additive Manufacturing for Propulsion Applications TIM ; 2020 ; Huntsville, AL , US


    Type of media :

    Miscellaneous


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    Additively Manufactured Balances for Propulsive Force Measurement

    Devin E Burns / Peter A Parker / Karl T Edquist et al. | NTRS


    Additively Manufactured Wind-Tunnel Balance

    Burns, Devin E. / Parker, Peter A. | AIAA | 2020



    Shadow UAV Wind Tunnel Testing using an Additively Manufactured Model

    Hall, Zach / McDaniel, Melissa / Owens, Anthony T. et al. | AIAA | 2018