1. ADBSat: Verification and validation of a novel panel method for quick aerodynamic analysis of satellites
- Author
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Sinpetru, Luciana, Crisp, Nicholas H., Roberts, Peter C. E., Sulliotti-Linner, Valeria, Hanessian, Virginia, Herdrich, Georg H., Romano, Francesco, Garcia-Alminana, Daniel, Rodriguez-Donaire, Silvia, and Seminari, Simon
- Subjects
Physics - Space Physics ,Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics - Abstract
We present the validation of ADBSat, a novel implementation of the panel method including a fast pseudo-shading algorithm, that can quickly and accurately determine the forces and torques on satellites in free-molecular flow. Our main method of validation is comparing test cases between ADBSat, the current de facto standard of direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), and published literature. ADBSat exhibits a significantly shorter runtime than DSMC and performs well, except where deep concavities are present in the satellite models. The shading algorithm also experiences problems when a large proportion of the satellite surface area is oriented parallel to the flow, but this can be mitigated by examining the body at small angles to this configuration (${\pm}$ 0.1{\deg}). We recommend that an error interval on ADBSat outputs of up to 3\% is adopted. Therefore, ADBSat is a suitable tool for quickly determining the aerodynamic characteristics of a wide range of satellite geometries in different environmental conditions in VLEO. It can also be used in a complementary manner to identify cases that warrant further investigation using other numerical-based methods., Comment: 30 pages, 15 figures. Submitted to Computer Physics Communications
- Published
- 2021
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