NASA JPL

Mars 2020 Helicopter THERMAL SENSITIVITIES

The results produced by Veritrek were utilized to study the effect of the major thermal design drivers and Mars environment on the Mars Helicopter in as little as 10 days, an effort that would have taken over 4 months using traditional thermal analysis techniques. – TFAWS, 2018

Thermal engineers at NASA JPL used Veritrek to perform a sensitivity study on their Mars Helicopter thermal design, to better understand what is driving the amount of heater energy required to survive the cold cases in the Martian environment and most efficiently optimize their thermal design to maximize helicopter flight time. Veritrek’s Screening Analysis was used to identify which input parameters the Survival Energy output was most sensitive to, which was then used to determine that the team could confidently lower the battery setpoint temperature to optimize flight time. Traditional methods could have been used by strategically adjusting the value of different parameters, evaluating the impact on output responses, and repeating this process for different design points as many times as the schedule allowed; but Veritrek provided the same information in ~1/10 of the time. Without Veritrek, a sensitivity study might not have been performed as it would have taken too long and instead an unoptimized design with larger margin and lower performance would have been used. Download the publication for more information.

Veritrek’s Screening Analysis feature interrogates the design space with thousands of points in a few seconds to determine which parameters have the greatest impact on an output. Design changes can be made and explored easily, and the new results can be quickly visualized. Here we see Gas Gaps, Battery Setpoint, and Convection have the greatest impact on Survival Energy.