Pressure Equalization Simulation Method for Docking Process

Abstract

Pressure equalization process will occur when a space ship docking to a space station through a nonlinear Pressure Equalization Assembly (PEA). The real-time simulation technology has great significance to understand the pressure equalization process and to test the working performance of PEA rapidly. However, the steadyoscillation will emerge when the Euler method is used. This paper firstly established a one-order nonlinear material flow model to study the docking process and then proposed a double-model method to simulate the pressure equalization process correctly. The double-model includes a Nonlinear Equalization (NR) model and an Approximate Linear Equalization (ALR) model. Based on the stability analysis theory, the mass flow can be divided into two intervals by the minimum stable mass flow, wmin and the NR model and ALR model will be applied in [wmin,wmax] and [0,wmin], separately. The simulation results show that the steady-state performance of docking process can be improved greatly by using the presented method.