Fluid ring damper for artificial gravity rotating system used for manned spacecraft

Long term human space missions require artificial gravity during some phases of the space flight. In this paper we propose a dual spin system to generate artificial gravity based on a classical rotorcraft configuration where the rotating blade-like module provides a 1g-gravity at the tips. The rotating module is eventually stopped by a fluid ring damper. The dynamics and effectiveness of the damper is analyzed; in particular stability is ensured since a Lyapunov function of the system is found. Optimal damper parameters such as fluid viscosity and ring geometry are determined in order to reduce the despinning time.