On the Influence of the Effective Heat of Ablation on Modeling the Interaction of Meteoroids with the Atmosphere

Abstract

The problem of modeling the entry of a meteoroid into the atmosphere and its interaction with it is considered. The motion, ablation, and energy deposition of a meteoroid or its fragments moving as a single body are modeled within the framework of meteor physics equations. The main parameter of these equations is the ablation parameter, equal to the ratio of the heat transfer coefficient to the effective heat of mass loss. Due to the lack of data from theoretical and experimental studies on the determination of the effective heat of ablation at high meteor velocities, its constant value is usually used in the literature. In this paper, it is proposed to use the effective heat of ablation variable along the trajectory, interpolating its value between the heat of evaporation and the heat of melting (or spallation), depending on the flight velocity. By numerically solving the meteor physics equations, we study the influence of the way of setting the effective heat of ablation and its uncertainty on the simulated characteristics: the meteoroid velocity, as well as the change in its mass and energy deposition along the trajectory and on the trajectory itself; and the inaccuracy in determining these characteristics is evaluated.