ATA Engineering, Inc. (ATA) is an engineering consulting firm that provides innovative solutions through test- and analysis-driven design by focusing on the engineering needs of manufacturers in addressing their cost, quality, and time-to-market challenges for mechanical and aerospace systems.
The Challenge
ATA was tasked with fine-tune the existing design of the Space Shuttle Main Engine rocket nozzles for use in NASA’s next generation vehicles and needed to understand the full scope of fluid-structure interaction in the components. Cost-control was critical and field test data was incomplete for full understanding of all parameters.
Dassault Systèmes Response
ATA employed the SIMULIA Co-Simulation Engine (CSE)
capability to link Abaqus Finite Element Analysis (FEA) with a
flow solver into a fully coupled structural and fluid dynamic
analysis.
Benefits
ATA now has the first-ever, time-accurate, 3-D FSI simulation of a
rocket engine nozzle during liftoff; the company was selected to
continue their work within NASA’s SLS program.