Effect of rocket exhaust of canisterized missile on adjoining launching system

Abstract

Transient numerical simulations are carried out to study missile motion in a vertical launch system and to estimate the effect of missile exhaust in the adjoining launch structure. Three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations along with k–ɛ turbulence model and species transport equations are solved using commercial computational fluid dynamics software. Dynamic grid movement is adopted and one degree of freedom trajectory equations are integrated with the computational fluid dynamic solver to obtain the instantaneous position of the missile. Multi-zone grid generation approach with sliding interface method through layering technique is adopted to address the changing boundary problem. The computational methodology is applied to study the missile motion in a scale-down test configuration as well as in the flight condition. The computations capture all essential flow features of test and flight conditions in active cell as well as in adjacent cells. Parametric studies are conducted to study the effect geometrical features and measurement uncertainty in the input data. Computed pressures in the adjacent cells in the launch system match better (∼12%) with the experimental and flight results compared to distant cells.