A CFD Study of the Aerodynamic Characteristics of Twardowsky and FOK Rockets

Stability and performance are crucial characteristics for aerospace vehicles. The ability to investigate the aerodynamics and performance of rockets gives an insight into their stability before flight and the potential for design and performance enhancements. For the past 13 years, the Rocketry Division within the students’ Space Association of Warsaw University of Technology has been developing sounding rockets of different designs and mission profiles. Two rockets have been chosen for the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) campaigns, FOK and Twardowsky. This paper describes the mathematical model of aerodynamic loads used by the Division for sounding rocket simulation, followed by CFD campaigns for the two rockets. The results of the CFD analysis are then used to calculate the rockets’ aerodynamic derivatives according to a previously defined mathematical model.

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1. The Students’ Space Association would like to thank Mesco sp. z.o.o. and ANSYS Inc. for providing the Ansys® Academic Mechanical and CFD license. The authors would also like to thank the Division of Aerodynamics at the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering at Warsaw University of Technology for granting access to its high-performance computing cluster.

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2. Opracowanie rekordu ze środków MEiN, umowa nr SONP/SP/546092/2022 w ramach programu "Społeczna odpowiedzialność nauki" - moduł: Popularyzacja nauki i promocja sportu (2022-2023).