Ground simulations of liquid-filled satellites

Because of earth gravity, liquid fuel tanks cannot be fixed on air-bearing tables to simulate satellite movements in space. This paper describes the use of fly wheels to simulate the sloshing liquid torques for ground simulations. A liquid sloshing model is used to compute the sloshing torques with fly wheels then designed to output the same torques in real time for satellite sloshing liquid simulations. Simulations show that the influences of sampling time, delay, and external moments are well simulated and that an equivalent treatment of the fly wheel dynamics equations can simplify the computations of the fly wheels' angular velocity and the gyro force analysis. © 2015, Press of Tsinghua University. All right reserved.