Computer Simulation of a Test Rig to Model Sloshing in Spin-Stabilized Satellites

Certain communications satellites carry liquid stores on board for station tending and attitude adjustment. However, sloshing of the liquid can cause an undesirable nutational motion of the spin-stabilized vehicle. In previous work a test rig was designed, built and instrumented to study the interaction between the rotating structure and liquid. To augment that experimental project, a computer model of the test rig has been developed to simulate the dynamic motion of the system for various parameter values. The sloshing liquid was replaced by a two degree-of-freedom pendulum in the mathematical model. Simulation results were compared with those from a general multibody dynamics program and with experimental measurements of the test rig motion to demonstrate the mathematical model’s validity. Good agreement was achieved in both instances.