Francesco Panerai
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The development of parachutes for the deceleration of planetary entry systems poses extraordinary challenges related to inflation dynamics, multi-body dynamics and capsule wake/parachute interactions during deployment and descent. Despite the advances in fluid-structure interaction (FSI) modeling, parachute design continues to rely on extensive ground and flight testing. Computational models need to resolve a wide range of scales to capture the dynamic behavior of parachute systems, and predictive tools are not mature enough for design and optimization. Without reproducing flight phenomena in large and costly wind tunnel experiments, well characterized benchmark data in simplified settings can be used to assess the performance of numerical tools and assist model development. Within this project we develop experiments that enable tailored validation of FSI models, while improving our understanding of parachute dynamics. In-situ x-ray micro-tomography and novel image analysis methods are used to resolve the multiscale mechanical response of parachute materials. Sub-scale wind tunnel experiments aided by advanced diagnostics are carried out to characterize coupled fluid and canopy dynamics at a wide range of time and length scales.