Multidisciplinary Sizing Process with General Purpose Geometry Generation for a conceptual Study of Space Transportation Systems

Abstract

This document presents some aspects of TRANSYS (TRANsportation SYStem) 2.0; the new version of TRANSYS. This includes the sequential sizing process, which defines the vehicle's dimensions and evaluates it's flight performance, with a new general purpose geometry generation program assembly for a commercial Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool I-DEAS T.M., the DLR original Computational Fluid Dynamics analyis (CFD) tool HOTSOSE and the DLR original trajectory simulation tool TOSCA-TS. The new program assembly can automatically create various CAD models (aeroshell and major structure components) of recent Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) concepts with aerodynamically refined shapes and rocket engines, such as a lifting body (e.g. X-33) and a winged vehicle (e.g. FESTIP (Future European Space Transportation Investigations Program FSS-1). Then the output data is used in the next processes for the aerodynamic analysis and mass estimation. The first part of this document describes the purposes and backgrounds of this method. The second part describes the geometry models, programming of a program assembly and CAD model generation procedures. The third part describes the vehicle mass estimation with a simpjle mass model. The fourth part describes the meshing of CAD models and aerodynamic calculation. The fifth part describes the trajectory simulation. The last part describes the evaluation of this method. The validation results of these processes and tools with the HOPE-X system design data are successfully shown. And the future possibilities are also presented.