New meteoroid entry method with a deformable non-spherical N-body model

Meteoroid disintegration in the atmosphere can produce airbursts that pose regional/global threats to the Earth. Precise dynamical simulation of hypersonic meteoroids is necessary for human safety. An analysis model that includes spatial structures and non-uniform ablation is needed to understand the evolution of meteoroids and provide inference for the deviation of fragments. This paper proposes a new meteoroid entry method to simulate their trajectory, attitude, ablation, fragmentation, and detonation. N-body configurations of deformable polyhedral granules that can alter the structures of heterogeneous meteoroids are introduced. By manipulating the polyhedron vertices, the rugged surfaces of the meteoroid and the volume change under ablation are described quantitatively. The pressure of the concentrated detonation products is modeled using the Jones-Wilkins-Lee equation of state. To verify the effectiveness of the new method, the expansion of the concentrated detonation products is numerically simulated for the Chelyabinsk meteoroid. Different detonation cases are obtained and presented to demonstrate the laterally/vertically-ejected fragments. Characteristics of both the fragments’ trajectories and the remained terminal masses satisfy the observed results well. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]