Water impact simulations and analyses of space capsule response characteristics

Impact acceleration during water landings can seriously damage a manned spacecraft. A fluid structure interaction model and the arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) algorithm of the finite element method (FEM) were used to simulate the water entry process of a space capsule. The simulations modeled all five factors of water impact response, which were the vertical impact velocity, the horizontal velocity, the pitch angle, the heeling angle, and the rolling angle. Analyses of the water impact characteristics show that only the vertical velocity significantly influences the maximum impact acceleration. For a fixed vertical velocity, the pitch angle and the heeling angle and their interactions are significant. The horizontal velocity and the rolling angle is not significant.