Design and Testing of High-Performance Parachutes

Description

RTO of NATO, AGARD-AG-319 (Advisory Group for Aerospace Research & Development), Neuilly sur Seine, France, 1991, 308 pp. - ISBN 92-835-0649-9 The term high-performance parachute is unavoidably subjective, yet it is necessary to bound the types of parachutes considered in this AGARDograph. We have chosen to define several categories of parachutes as high performance. The first category includes parachutes that are deployed at Mach numbers above 0.7 or at dynamic pressures above 500 Ih/ft(2). An example is the 24-ft-diameter Kevlar/nylon ribbon parachute developed for a 760-lb payload to provide impact velocities of 75 ft/s after release from an aircraft at altitudes of only 100 ft above the ground at release Mach numbers up 1.2. Pepper reported that this 90-lb parachute developed a maximum opening deceleration of 240 gat a deployment dynamic pressure of 2650 lh/ft(2). Another illustration of a high-speed parachute is the 5.2-ft-diameter Kevlarhylon rihhon parachute developed to decelerate an 800-lh payload from a deployment velocity of 2300 ft/s (M = 2.2) at an altitude of 3000 ft.Contents. Introduction. Historical Review. Description of High-Performance, Deployable Aerodynamic Decelerators. Steady-State Aerodynamics. Nonsteady Aerodynamics. Structural Analysis. Wind Tunnel Testing. Parachute Materials. Deployment Systems Ancillary Devices, Parachute Fabrication, and Packing. Full-Scale Testing. Parachute Design Examples. Summary and Conclusions. Author Index. Subject Index.