A Method for Estimation of Roll Damping Coefficient from Trajectory Data

Estimation of aerodynamic coefficients is one of the important step in projectile design. Initial estimates of aerodynamic coefficients are usually obtained using semi empirical engineering codes and computational methods. Later these estimates are refined further using wind tunnel tests and /or flight tests. In the study of stability of the projectile during flight, roll damping coefficient and roll moment coefficient play an important role. A novel method is proposed in this paper to estimate roll damping coefficient from the trajectory data. The method is validated for two different configurations namely, roll stabilized shell and fin stabilized rocket. The measurements are simulated for the complete trajectory to cover complete Mach regime. The comparison with known results in both the cases indicate validity and robustness of the proposed method.