Space flight re-entry vehicles need to withstand heavy impact upon landing and it is critical for engineers to understand the effects on the vehicle and the crew to ensure the safety of the mission.  In order to gain this insight, engineers need to be able to model both the space craft structure and the landing medium such as water, sand, clay, etc.

The coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) method in Abaqus/Explicit provides the ability for capturing this interaction all within the framework of a single finite element model.  The simulation provides the means to investigate the peak accelerations faced by the crew or the payload during water landing.    

NASA Engineers Work on Alternative Moon Rocket