Contact Dynamics Investigation Using Microgravity Experiment for Asteroid-Related Scenarios

EasyChair Preprint no. 13527

Abstract

In this research, the preliminary activities towards an experimental campaign with the purpose of investigating the contact physics on asteroid-related scenarios are presented. The outcomes will be used to calibrate contact parameters in an multi-body code.Most asteroids are now thought to be gravitational aggregates, and their granular nature suggests that their dynamics can be effectively simulated using N-body codes, such as GRAINS, whose contact dynamics is based on Project::Chrono. However, to date contact parameters in N-body codes are usually tuned to reproduce large-scale scenarios. The motivation behind the experimental campaign under development is that the accurate modelling of the interactions at particle scale is key to enhance the realism of the simulations necessary to support future asteroid exploration missions. The high-level goal of the experiment is to observe the collision between two asteroid simulant cobbles in micro-gravity and vacuum conditions. Then, a digital twin of the experiment will be calibrated to reproduce their 6-dof trajectory to the best accuracy possible. This work describes the requirements and constraint identified for each component of the experimental set up, focusing on the benchmark model of the digital twin and on the strategy designed to estimate the cobbles' states and contact parameters. The estimation results from preliminary numerical simulations show good performances in most of the scenarios tested, providing important guidelines for the next phases of the experiment development.

Keyphrases: asteroid dynamics, Camera reference frame, coefficient of restitution, Contact dynamics, Digital Twin, drop tower, granular mechanics, microgravity experiment, multibody codes, parameter identification, state and contact parameters estimation, support future asteroid exploration missions

@Booklet{EasyChair:13527,
  author = {Samuele Vaghi and Iosto Fodde and Fabio Ferrari},
  title = {Contact Dynamics Investigation Using Microgravity Experiment for Asteroid-Related Scenarios},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 13527},

  year = {EasyChair, 2024}}