Thermal Modeling and Analysis of Aluminum Honeycomb Panels Used in NASA/APL’s Dragonfly Mission Lander’s Fuselage
Matthew Banyas and Aiden Zhang
Mentored by Jane He and Hui Liu (SES)
This study examines the thermal properties of corrugated aluminum honeycomb panels as used in the NASA/APL Dragonfly Lander fuselage as well as abstracted modeling methods to help reduce the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) workload for its computer simulations. An array of different computer aided design (CAD) models were produced to study the impact of different fidelities, meshing sizes, and simplification techniques as they relate to heat transfer processes and performance implications in the conditions on Titan’s surface. Corroborating previously published papers and APL-conducted thermal tests, the modeling strategy findings will be used to improve the full Dragonfly Lander CFD thermal model and remain applicable in other honeycomb applications.
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