Approximate Longitudinal Dynamics of a Lifting Orbital Vehicle

Meier, Torsten; Norman, Wendell

doi:10.2514/3.1879

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…The above papers and the works of Morth and Speyer (1961) and Norman and Meier (1963), considered collectively, provide a comprehensive study of the longitudinal dynamics of a lifting, thrusting vehicle in the hypersonic speed and orbital altitude regimes. However, there remain gaps in the results previously obtained, specifically, an adequate analysis of non-linear effects and of the altitude region where the phugoid and short-period mode frequencies are nearly equal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonlinear longitudinal dynamics of an orbital lifting vehicle

Vinh

Dobrzelecki

1971

Celestial Mechanics

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This paper presents an analytical study of the longitudinal dynamics of a thrusting, lifting, orbital vehicle in a nearly circular orbit. The translational motion is composed of a nonlinear oscillation, or phugoid, and a spiral mode which results in either decay or dilatation of the orbit depending on the perturbed initial conditions. The nonlinear effects on the phugoid period and damping are small in the altitude range considered. Elements of the orbit such as radial distance, velocity, and flight path angle were obtained explicitly as functions of time. The behavior of the variations of these elements is correctly predicted. Explicit expressions for period and damping of the angle-of-attack mode were derived. It is shown that a critical altitude may exist at which the phugoid mode and the angle-of-attack mode have nearly equal periods. Near this resonance altitude linearized solutions are no longer valid and a study of the nonlinear equations shows that there is a strong interaction between the translational and the rotational modes resulting in a switching of the two frequencies of oscillations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%