Dynamic modelling and verification of a flexible clustered launch vehicle

Abstract

Conceptual design of aerospace devices with low weight and high performance has currently been the aim of many researches and this has led to appearance of the flexibility in structures of these devices. These flexible behaviours have considerable effects on the flight dynamic and this problem in launch vehicles with cluster bodies is more important. Nonetheless, in the previous works, this aerospace device is only modelled as a single flexible body which is not enough for complete vibrational analysis. Hence, in this article, a non-linear dynamic model of a flexible clustered launch vehicle with one central core and two symmetrical clusters is extracted in the vector matrix format via the quasi-coordinate Lagrange method. Continuously, in order to verify the extracted dynamic model, the system is also modelled as a flexible multi-body in ADAMS software. Finally, parameters of the equation-based model and the ADAMS model are compared. Investigation on the results of this comparison shows satisfactory validation of the equations of motion.