Flight Path Control During Hypersonic Atmospheric Entry Using Active Magnetic Arrays
Abstract
The purpose of this thesis is to study the reaction to the Lorentz force induced during the
hypersonic regime of flight by an active magnetic field. The effect that a magnetic array
has on the flight characteristics of a blunt body during Earth atmospheric entry is
characterized and isolated for independent analysis. This is done to show that mission-specific benefits to utilizing this method of entry control exist and therefore warrant further
study. To conduct this analysis, a 1000 kg blunt body test case was used. This craft
contains three separate magnets located behind the nose with two of them offset by 45°
to
provide the possibility of varying the magnetic flux density in each magnet. The craft’s
initial altitude, velocity, and flight path angle were 120 km, 6.5 km/s, and -0.5°
respectively. MATLAB was used to study the atmospheric entry and a Simulink model
was developed to simulate the lift and drag forces produced by the reaction to the Lorentz
force. The angle of attack was varied from 0 - 25°
and the initial magnetic flux density was
varied from 0.1 – 1 T. The resulting flight characteristics were compared to those with no
applied magnetic field to quantify the effects of utilizing this type of entry control. Based
on the results of this study, a magnetic flux density of 1 T does impact the flight
characteristics of a blunt body craft by adding a lift force of 2857 N and a drag force of
240.8 N. The Lorentz lift and drag forces produced and their exact impact on flight
trajectory warrant future study using CFD analysis.