Rebuilding the VKI’s Experiment on the Interference of a Free-Flying Ring and Stationary Cylinder Using a Multi-Fidelity Numerical Methodology

The re-entry process is distinguished by the generation of several fragments due to a controlled or uncontrolled fragmentation process. The presence of fragments in supersonic and hypersonic regimes can lead to the formation of shock waves and complex flow features that impact the structural integrity and dynamics of neighbor bodies, requiring high-fidelity tools to be fully resolved. The present research investigates the use of a re-entry framework for rebuilding VKI's experiment of a free-flying ring crossing a shock wave generated by the presence of a stationary cylinder, proposed to analyze fragment dispersion due to shock interaction. The framework accounts for the ring dynamic propagation through the use of a quasi-steady methodology, enabling the numerical analysis of the shock-impingement effects in the ring trajectory and attitude.