The accuracy of the calculated drag force in OpenRocket was examined in this investigation for a rocket traveling at subsonic, transonic and supersonic speeds. The idea was to compare the computed drag coefficients in OpenRocket to the drag coefficients obtained by running multiple computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations in Ansys Fluent. Specifically, the freestream Mach number and altitude parameters were varied for a geometric model of the Mjöllnir rocket. The results obtained converged several orders of magnitude and were exceptionally stable. Both the physical accuracy and numerical independence of the results was verified through examining the solutions' contour plots and conducting multiple sensitivity analyses. The conclusion was that OpenRocket overpredicts the Mjöllnir rocket's drag coefficients by 12 % to 73 % for all examined freestream Mach numbers and altitudes. Additionally, an empirical relationship was found for how the Mjöllnir rocket's drag coefficient changes with altitude and the freestream Mach number. In particular, it is a multivariate function that can be considered valid for an altitude of h ≤ 10 km and a freestream Mach number of 0.2 ≤ M ≤ 3.0. The empirical relationship fitted exceedingly well with simulation data and merits further investigation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-349721 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Seiz de Filippi, Maximillian |
| Publisher | KTH, Skolan för teknikvetenskap (SCI) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | TRITA-SCI-GRU ; 2024:212 |
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