Dynamic Analysis of a Sled Traveling Along a Rough Rail

摘要

Rocket sleds are commonly used for simulation of special environments for testing purposes. The motion of a sled on the track induces large quasi-steady-state and dynamic forces on the sled. Design of sleds requires knowledge of these forces and of established techniques for application of measured and theoretical forcing functions to proven mathematical structural simulations. The prediction of the quasi-steady-state sled loads is relatively straight-forward and requires few specialized techniques. Dynamic force prediction on the other hand is somewhat of a black art. Several techniques have been theorized but the results have been extremely marginal at best. This research is intended to find a reliable force prediction tool that is not extremely cumbersome to use. Additional keywords: equations of motion; DASTARR computer program; DASTARR(Dynamic Analysis of a Sled Traveling Along a Rough Rail); statistical analysis, normal distribution.