Currently modeling tools are unable to accurately predict the regolith and particle environment due to plume-surface interactions when a spacecraft is landing on a body using powered descent. High-speed ejection of granular material results in scouring and dust impregnation of exposed hardware, reduced visibility, and potential spoofing of the landing sensors. Through a partnership with the University of Michigan, and a companion CIF through NASA Marshall (who partnered with Johns Hopkins University), the objective of this CIF was to further modeling capabilities for future plume-surface interactions simulations. Specifically, this work focuses on performing one to one comparisons between particle laden computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and dedicated validation experiments. Excellent comparisons were observed between the simulations and the experiments, and a preliminary evaluation of the drag model used in the CFD simulations was performed, showing how the predicted particle velocity distribution is sensitive to the numerical drag law chosen.
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