BookID 214574_ChapID 25_Proof# 1 - 23/04/2011

Proceedings of the IMAC-XXVIII

 February 1–4, 2010, Jacksonville, Florida USA
©2010 Society for Experimental Mechanics Inc.

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S. Fransen, H. Fischer, S. Kiryenko, D. Levesque, T. Henriksen

European Space Agency, ESTEC, P.O. Box 299, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands, EU

$%675$&7 ESA’s new small launcher – VEGA – has been designed as a single body launcher with three solid
rocket motor stages and an additional liquid propulsion upper module used for attitude and orbit control, and
satellite release. Part of the mission analysis is the so-called launcher-satellite coupled loads analysis which aims
at computing the dynamic environment of the satellite for the most severe load cases in flight. To allow such
analyses to be processed in short time, all stages of the launcher finite element model are condensed. The
condensed launcher mathematical model can subsequently be coupled to a condensed satellite mathematical
model. To obtain accurate predictions of the satellite dynamic environment it is evident that the damping of the
entire system has to be defined in a representative way. This paper explains a methodology to compute the modal
damping matrix of a superelement on the basis of the structural damping ratios assigned to the various materials
in the associated finite element model and the associated complex strain energy of the modeshapes. The
methodology turns out to be well suited for the computation of the modal damping matrix of condensed solid
rocket motor structural models, as evidenced by correlation with firing tests conducted for the first stage motor of
the VEGA launcher.


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ESA’s new small launcher – Vega – has been designed as a single body launcher with three solid rocket motor
stages and an additional liquid propulsion upper module used for attitude and orbit control, and satellite release.
The main launcher components are depicted in figure 1. The three solid rocket motor stages are the P80 (first
stage, 88 tonnes of propellant), the Z23 (second stage, 24 tonnes of propellant) and the Z9 (third stage, 10 tonnes
of propellant). The lift-off mass of the launcher is about 137 tonnes.

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T. Proulx (ed.), Structural Dynamics, Volume 3, Conference Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Mechanics Series 12, 273
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-9834-7_25, © The Society for Experimental Mechanics, Inc. 2011
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274

An important step in the design and verification process of spacecraft structures is the coupled dynamic analysis
with the launch vehicle in the low frequency domain and is also referred to as coupled loads analysis (CLA) [1,2].
The low-frequency domain, typically from 0 to 100 Hz, corresponds to the frequency content of forcing functions
used in the CLA. The objective of CLA is the computation of the mechanical environment of the spacecraft
(payload) induced by the launcher dynamic loads at particular instants of time during flight. The excitation may be
of aerodynamic origin (wind, gust, buffeting at transonic or maximum dynamic speed) or may be induced by the
propulsion system (thrust build-up or tail-off transients, acoustic pressure oscillations in the combustion chamber
of solid rocket motor, or acoustic loads impinging on the exterior surface of the launcher at lift-off). It is evident
that the damping characteristics of the launcher-payload assembly are of utmost importance in order to predict the
payload dynamic environment with sufficient confidence. The CLA process as embedded into the design cycle of
the spacecraft structure is depicted in figure 2.

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Usually the damping is defined separately for each condensed model. In this way the damping of the launcher-
payload system depends on the damping properties of its substructures, provided that the dynamic response
analysis is performed by solving the equations of motions without modal decomposition. It is evident that in modal
dynamic response analyses, a modal damping profile applicable to the entire system has to be defined based on
good engineering judgement. Obviously this is time consuming and could potentially lead to a loss of accuracy of
the flight limit loads as the measured or identified modal damping of the launch vehicle substructures is not used
at all. In addition it is very unlikely that the modal damping characteristics for the entire launcher-payload system
are known from operational modal analysis performed on the basis of flight data.

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One way to define the substructure modal damping matrix is by the identification of the natural frequencies and
associated modal damping ratios from sine vibration tests (spacecraft) or operational modal analysis (solid rocket
motors). However, this information is seldom available during the design phase of a spacecraft or launcher.
Consequently, the damping factor is often estimated as a constant within certain frequency bands, or is taken as a
progressively increasing factor towards higher frequencies, as depicted in figure 3. The latter will avoid strong
oscillations from unrealistic high frequency modes. If test data is missing – as in the early phases of spacecraft
and launcher design projects – one could construct a damping profile from statistical data. However, such
approach could easily lead to either under or overestimation of the loads on the satellite structure. This can be
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seen from the research conducted by Carrington and Ottens [3]. They tested several spacecraft and found that
the modal damping of spacecraft varied between 3% and 7%. For spacecraft structures one usually chooses a
low damping ratio, i.e 1% or 2%, to be conservative on the predicted loads. For launcher solid rocket motors such
approach with a conservative and flat modal damping profile cannot be used. The reason for this is that the
damping depends even stronger on the mode shape. The high damping ratio of the solid propellant will increase
the modal damping for those axial modes that exhibit a high deformation of the solid propellant.


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In order to estimate the modal damping factors for solid rocket motors in the early stage of the design process,
one could derive them from structural damping values assigned to the various materials used in the finite element
model of the SRM. Suppose the structural damping has been defined for all elements of a substructure FE
model, either globally or element wise or both. Then the structural damping matrix K S can be computed as
follows:

E
KS J g ˜ K  ¦J e ˜ Ke (1)
e 1

For the equation of motion of a system excited by harmonic forces we can then write:

 : 2

˜ M  i ˜ K S  K ˜ xˆ Fˆ (2)

By computation of the modal subspace \ composed of N mass-normalized eigenmodes, we can define the co-
ordinate transformation x \ ˜ q which leads to the following equation:

 : 2

˜\ T ˜ M ˜\  i ˜\ T ˜ K S ˜\  \ T ˜ K ˜\ ˜ qˆ \ T ˜ Fˆ (3)

or,
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276

 : 2
˜ I  i ˜ DS  / ˜ qˆ fˆ (4)

In eq.(4) I is the identity matrix and DS is the fully populated structural damping matrix of the modal model. Note
that i ˜ DS could be regarded as a complex modal strain energy matrix associated to the complex stiffness i ˜ K S .
The diagonal matrix / is the modal stiffness matrix defined by:

/ diag (Z 2 ) (5)

Solving the modal dynamic response qˆ from eq.(4), we find:

qˆ  : 2
˜ I  i ˜ DS  /  1
˜ fˆ = 1 ˜ fˆ (6)

where = is the complex impedance matrix defined by:

=  : 2
˜ I  i ˜ DS  /  (7)

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Q can now be computed as the ratio of the dynamic response over the
The quality factor or amplification factor
static response at each resonance frequency : Z of the modal model, i.e.:

Q : Z
= 1 : Z  ˜ fˆ = 1 : Z
|

4 = 1 : Z  (8)
/ ˜ fˆ
1
/ 1
1/ Z 2

Note that the function 4 takes the diagonal term at : Z . Hence we find for each natural frequency an
equivalent viscous damping (or equivalent modal damping) as follows:
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277

1 1/ Z2
9 : Z 
2 ˜ Q : Z 
2 ˜ 4 = 1 : Z  (9)

In a similar fashion one can work out a relationship for equivalent modal damping for all modal co-ordinates of a
condensed model defined by Craig-Bampton formulation. As an example for this approach, the equivalent modal
damping of a solid rocket motor is plotted in figure 4.

Damping for System of Condensed Models

The damping matrix of a system of reduced models is now simply assembled from the substructure damping
matrices conform the assembly of the mass and stiffness matrix of the condensed system. For expanded matrices
one can write:

C C C C

¦M
c 1
c ˜ q  ¦ Bc ˜ q  ¦ K c ˜ q
c 1 c 1
M sys ˜ q  Bsys ˜ q  K sys ˜ q ¦f
c 1
c (10)

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In order to derive a correlated motor FE-model, correlation with accelerometer data from firing tests was
performed. At first instance the correlation of the acceleration equivalent sine spectra was exercised and by
means of sensitivity analyses the most dominant parameters were identified and selected. It is evident that for this
correlation activity the firing test shall be simulated and hence the forcing functions are needed as an input. The
forcing functions – basically the pressure fluctuations in the combustion chamber - were derived from
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computations that simulated the internal flow in the combustion chamber of
the motor. The firing test configuration is sketched in figure 5. Forcing functions were assumed to be correct and
for that reason were not considered as parameters in the correlation activity, hence only the FE-model was
subject to the correlation activity.


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One of the dominant correlation parameters was the structural damping ratio of the solid propellant that is used to
compute the equivalent modal damping of the motor modes. These modes constitute the condensed model of the
motor FE-model. In figure 6 one can see how well the equivalent modal damping model can be used to tune the
amplification at the dominant excitation frequency. At most accelerometer stations the sine spectra found by
simulation did match reasonably well with the test spectra. The structural damping ratio of the solid propellant that
provided the best match was in line with the damping ratio found by dynamic tests on propellant samples. As can
be observed from figure 6, the modal density of the model should be increased to find better agreement at higher
frequencies.
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Having chosen – amongst other parameters – the correct structural damping ratio for the solid propellant by
means of correlation, the correlated motor FE-models were used in a VEGA CLA. Here we will only describe one
load case – lift-off – as the information described in the previous section is obviously directly linked to this load
case. At ignition of the solid rocket motors the internal pressure builds up rapidly, which leads to axial vibrations
transmitted to the spacecraft interface. This transient is a function of the size and ignition characteristics of the
solid motor, but typically excites the main axial modes of the vehicle up to 100 Hz. Besides the main axial ignition
loads, see figure 7a, also the less dominant lateral blast wave loads are taken into account, see figure 7b.

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279

As highlighted in figure 1, one of the primary outputs of the CLA are the sine spectra at the spacecraft interface,
which should provide levels below the sine test spectra defined in the user manual of the launcher. In addition one
can verify, whether the primary notches computed to not exceed the max COG loads of the spacecraft, as defined
in the user manual, are feasible. In figure 8, a graph is shown with the sine spectrum of lift-off (as well as spectra
for other load cases and the envelope) which shows that the simulated payload interface loads are lower than the
dynamic design loads across the entire frequency spectrum of interest. The primary notches are well above the
envelope which allows the use of a notched spectrum during sine vibration testing of the spacecraft.

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When adopting (condensed) 3D-models for the launcher stack, it is usually difficult to detect the system modes
that drive the payload response, especially for loadcases that excite the axial modes. In order to find those
modes, as well as their damping rates, it is useful to decompose the response – computed from an output
transformation matrix [4] and the generalized response – into its modal participation factors or modal gains:

P P
Vi ¦ ) ip ˜ q p
1
¦V
1
p (11)

where the modally converted output transformation matrix ) ip of the spacecraft is given by:

) ip ) iq ˜  M sys (12)

and where the modally converted generalized response is given by:

qp M sys
T
˜ M sys ˜ q (13)
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280

Note that in eq.(13) the generalized response q is computed by direct time integration and that the modal
conversion requires a normal modes analysis for the whole system. By filtering out the main modal contributions,
one can immediately find the corresponding modeshapes and obtain a better physical insight into the coupling
between launcher and spacecraft at resonance peaks. Besides the frequencies of the main modes, one can also
find the corresponding modal damping ratios from the following system damping approximation:

9 sys diag (M sys

T
˜ Bsys ˜ M sys ) (12)

Note that Bsys has been defined previously in eq.(10). In figure 9 the modal gain of the longitudinal spacecraft
interface response is plotted for all system modes up to 200 Hz. One can clearly identify the main modes. By
using only the main modes with a modal gain higher than 5% one can reconstruct the spacecraft interface
response quite well, as can be observed in figure 10.










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In this paper a damping methodology has been discussed which allows to compute a modal damping matrix that
is based on structural damping ratios assigned to the materials present in a substructure FE-model, and the
associated complex strain energy of the modeshapes. Comparison with firing test data has shown that the
method provides good damping models for solid rocket motors that are comprised of materials with low and high
structural damping ratios. The damping model was implemented in the motor models used for Vega CLA
activities. The lift-off load case has been briefly discussed in terms of loads and responses. It has been shown
that the responses obtained by direct time integration schemes can be decomposed into their modal participation
factors or modal gains (after having performed a normal modes analysis), which allows the detection of the driving
system modes as well as the evaluation of their modal damping ratios.

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[1] Fransen, S., Methodologies for Launcher-Payload Coupled Dynamic Analysis, European Conference on
Spacecraft Structures, Materials & Mechanical Testing, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 2005.
[2] Fischer, H., et al., A Dynamic Analysis Tool for Europe’s Small Launcher Vega, European Conference on
Spacecraft Structures, Materials & Mechanical Testing, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 2005.
[3] Carrington, H. and Ottens, H., A Survey of Data on Damping in Spacecraft Structures. Technical Report ESRO
CR-539, ESTEC contract No. 2142173, Fokker Space and NLR, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, 2005.
[4] Fransen, S., A Comparison of Recovery Methods for Substructure Models with Internal Loads. AIAA Journal,
42(10):2130-2142, 2004.