Recent Advancements in Spikes Used in Hypersonic Re-Entry Vehicles by Using CFD

Abstract

The recent introduction of spike in the frontal region of high speed reentry vehicles has brought a tremendous improvement in space activities in the world. The major issue that the spikes resolves is aero heating of re-entry vehicles. Moreover, it preserves structural integrity and avoids damage. Usage of spike is economical and effective over different kinds of thermal protection system. Previous investigation on spiked re-entry vehicles leads to a conclusion that the Blunt and Snap spikes resulted in better reduction of temperature at nose of re-entry vehicle. This paper deals with geometry optimization of blunt and snap spike specifically the length, which is varied as L/8, L/4 and 3L/8 respectively where L is the length of the vehicle. ANSYS 17.2 FLUENT solver is incorporated for analysis purpose and the results are compared among the three different length spike re-entry vehicles. Modal analysis has also been carried out and natural frequency of spikes are obtained. This would provide a way to accept the safe and economical design with better thermal protection of the high-speed space vehicle.