Structural and Thermal Loads for Hypersonic HEXAFLY-INT Vehicle

The purpose of this paper is to describe the procedures used to evaluate structural and thermal loads experimented by the HEXAFLY-INT Experimental Flight Test Vehicle (EFTV) and Experimental Service Module (ESM) during the ascent phase of the flight trajectory. The HEXAFLY-INT payload will be launched by a rocket in a suborbital trajectory having an apogee at around 90 km and Mach 8. During this phase the structure is subjected to the launcher environment that includes several events which generates static, random and sinusoidal acceleration and by a fixed thermal distribution. The load conditions due to mechanical loads have been defined by dynamic analyses by means of MSC Nastran software. Thermal loads have been identified by using Ansys Workbench software. The thermo-structural load conditions due to launcher environment have been defined by means of an interpolation procedure for transferring thermal distribution from Ansys to the Nastran FE Model.