A variety of questions

So I am doing a science project on grid fins and I am wondering two things:

Does it calculate the total force on the fin due to the air stream?

Does it also tell me the total moment of the fin due to the air stream?

If I am able to get this data I will be able to find the design load of the fin.
Also, if anyone is familiar with Autodesk’s CFD, do you know how to do the above questions? I like to have two sources to see how accurate

Thanks!

Hi @Norminal!

Could you please share the project with us to have a look at what you have simulated? Without the setup it makes it a bit hard to fully grasp the concept of your simulation. Feel free to share it here in the comment section.

Best,

Jousef

I am still trying to learn how to use SimScale (I’m used to Autodesk at the moment) so no attempt yet.

I am trying to determine which design of a grid fin is ideal for a rocket landing. By doing this, I have to know the the total moment of the fin and total force on the grid fin. Then I can calculate the design load and everything will be easy down there.

Thanks

Hi @Norminal!

If you are fine with defining the average force for the FE analysis then you can use result control item option inside SimScale to get the pressure on defined structures (in your case the fins). If you want accurate results then use Paraview to get the force on the entire face and then do a 3D force definition using a table upload.

If you are want to perform a worst case scenario simulation simply take the highest pressure force occurring during the simulation and take that as an input value for your FE simulation and iteratively change your design to see the impact. Does that sound good to you?

Best,

Jousef