Fluid–structure interaction modeling of complex parachute designs with the space–time finite element techniques

In recent years we introduced a number of enhancements to the space–time techniques we developed for computer modeling of Fluid–Structure Interaction (FSI) problems. These enhancements, which include more sophisticated fluid–structure coupling and improved mesh generation, are enabling us to address more of the computational challenges involved. Our objective here is to demonstrate the robustness of these techniques in FSI modeling of parachutes involving complex designs. As a numerical example, we have selected a conceptual parachute design with geometric complexities resembling those seen in some of the advanced parachute designs proposed and tested in recent times. We describe our FSI modeling techniques and how we compute the descent and glide performance of this conceptual parachute design.