Optimization and Performance Analysis of Oleo-Honeycomb Damper Used in Vertical Landing Reusable Launch Vehicle

Abstract

A dynamic model is proposed and validated to analyze the landing performance of a vertical landing reusable launch vehicle (RLV) with a novel oleo-honeycomb two-stage damper. Based on this model and design requirements, seven critical landing conditions are found as a foundation of the following multiobjective and multiconstraint optimization for oleo-honeycomb damper. In order to overcome the time-consuming and variable coupling problem of the optimization, a combinatorial optimization method is proposed and verified with collaborative optimization (CO) combined with an archive-based micro-genetic algorithm (AMGA). Meanwhile, relaxation factors and the radial basis function (RBF) model are employed to improve the computational accuracy and efficiency. After obtaining the optimal solution, the influences of the landing strut friction coefficient and ground friction coefficient on the soft-landing process are analyzed. The results show that the combinatorial optimization method is feasible and efficient, and the selection of honeycomb crushing force and hydraulic damper’s parameters affect and restrict each other. The oleo-honeycomb damper has some advantages over traditional dampers and two factors of initial landing conditions have different influences on touchdown stability, impact acceleration, and nozzle ground clearance.