A sensitivity analysis of breakup models

Williams, D. Neil, Swinerd, Graham G., Lewis, Hugh G. and Gittins, Gavin , American Astronautical Society (2002) A sensitivity analysis of breakup models. Bendisch, J. (ed.) In Proceedings of the Space Debris Sessions from a Symposium of the International Academy of Astronautics held in conjunction with the 52nd International Astronautical Federation Congress, October 1-5, 2001, Toulouse, France. vol. 105, American Astronautical Society. pp. 97-115 . (Submitted)

Abstract

Four of the leading breakup models, IDES, SDM, MASTER and EVOLVE 4 were compared in terms of their distributions of the cumulative number of fragments, fragment delta-vs and mass-to-area ratios with respect to fragment mass. These comparisons were made for a number of fragmentation scenarios including high and low intensity explosions and catastrophic and non-catastrophic collisions. It has been found that the IDES, SDM and MASTER models are generally in fairly good agreement for all these distributions in all scenarios, although there are slight differences to be found in certain cases. the EVOLVE 4 model produces generally different results for all scenarios, most notably in its delta-v and mass-tp-area distributions. the major differences between all the models in terms of their equations are discussed herein. An example scenario of a low intensity explosion in GEO was chosen and the resulting debris cloud for all models was propagated using the same high-fidelity orbital propagator. The differences in the propagated clouds for each model were compared. Generally the debris clouds produced by the IDES, SDM and MASTER models were in fairly good agreement for most scenarios, whilst the debris cloud produced by EVOLVE 4 shows some significant differences.

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Contributors

Author: Hugh G. Lewis

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