DYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF SPACECRAFT SLOSHING UNDER GRAVITY-SPINNINGENVIRONMENT

In this paper the dynamic characteristics of a spinning spacecraft par tially filled with liquid are investigated under gravity environment. The governing equations include centrifugal inertial force, Coriolis f orce and spatially homogeneous vorticity. Suppose that the liquid in a rigid tank is ideal and incompressible. Viscous dissipation is relate d by the boundary layer theory. The boundary value problems of liquid sloshing and the differential equations of the fluid-rigid coupled sys tem are derived and solved by using three dimensional boundary element method. Using the energy sink theory, the nutation time constant of t he spinning spacecraft is predicted numerically. (C) 1997 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd.