Kelly Burke
Research Mentor: Yun Zhang
Mentor Department: Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, Engineering
Author(s): Mohamed Yahya, Kelly Burke, Yun Zhang
Session: Session 3 (11:00 AM – 11:50 AM)
Presentation Type: Creative Project
Abstract
A study was done to investigate how the plume produced by a descending lunar lander may interact with the lunar regolith, better understanding where regolith might travel and stick to, to potentially improve the lunar lander design and operation. We employ the Stochastic Parallel Rarefied-gas Time-accurate Analyzer (SPARTA) Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) simulator in this study. With SPARTA, we were able to simulate the plume of a rocket engine both in speed and heat to get close to real results. The lunar surface in SPARTA was simulated as a clump of spherical particles but had the similar properties as the real lunar regolith in weight, size, and configuration. Our initial results show agreement between the simulated drag forces on regolith particles and theoretical estimates. We validate the simulations by comparing the resultant drag force to the theoretical predictions based on a mathematically derived drag coefficient equation. By matching simulation parameters to the corresponding analytical quantities, this approach can be applied to conditions relevant to lunar landing and future missions. After separate testing and practice to make sure we run Sparta correctly and that our results are accurate, we will assemble the entire simulation and run it on the Great Lakes HPC Cluster, the University of Michigan’s high performance computing cluster built for large and detailed simulations. At this time we have not run our simulations on the Great Lakes HPC cluster so we do not have a final result. This work supports efforts to better predict surface alterations under the influence of lander plumes. Our results will help future researchers analyze drag force and erosion speeds on the lunar surface to further understand the changes occurring during spacecraft landings.
