Multi-Disciplinary Multi-Objective Shape Optimization of Orion Type Re-entry Capsule

Multidisciplinary shape optimization of a re-entry capsule with aero-thermodynamic, trajectory, stability and the geometry considerations are presented in this research. The method is based on decomposition of the underlying problem into disciplinary routines performing separated analysis for each goal.The current research is separated into four main components: shape parameterization of re-entry capsule, aero-thermodynamic analysis, re-entry trajectory analysis and optimization.The re-entry capsule that is studied here belongs to the family of the Orion-like capsule and its shape composed of three analytic surfaces: a spherical nose, a ring section and a rear conical part. The objectives of the optimization are maximizing volumetric efficiency, minimizing longitudinal stability derivative, and minimizing the ballistic coefficient, subject to constraints on geometry, heating load, and deceleration. Utilizing a multi-objective genetic algorithm will result in a collection of non-dominated Pareto optimal solutions. Then, the multi-disciplinary multi-objective optimization process allows finding a Pareto front of the best shapes. Resulting optimal solutions obviously show the compromises among volumetric efficiency, longitudinal stability and ballistic coefficient. In the end, the results containing dimension’s characteristics of the re-entry capsule is presented.