Safe Landing
Paul Gilfrin
Product Specialist
 |
| Using Tecplot, a shuttle debris trajectory is visualised.
A 1.67 pound slab of insulating foam is seen falling off the external
tank after Columbia's launch and hitting the left wing. The Columbia
Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) has identified a debris event
like this as the most likely cause of the Columbia disaster. This
image was used in the CAIB's final report. |
When the space shuttle Discovery landed safely on 9th August, the world
breathed a sigh of relief. This was the first shuttle flight since Discovery's
sister ship Columbia broke up during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere
two-and-a-half years previously.
The cause of the Columbia disaster was
eventually found to be due to pieces of insulating foam from the external
fuel tank breaking off during launch. This damaged the wing so that on
re-entry, superheated gas was able to penetrate the craft.
In determining
the cause of the accident, NASA scientists used Tecplot to generate a
composite image extracted from a 3D computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation.
This visualised the trajectory of the slab of foam as it fell off the tank
and hit the wing - an image used in the final report of the Columbia
Accident Investigation Board whose recommendations were implemented before
this year's shuttle flight.
Time and time again Tecplot proves itself
as the most outstanding data visualisation tool for CFD post-processing
and a huge range of other data-intensive applications. It's worth
finding out more about it. |
RSS Feeds
System Requirements