NASA’s Ares V space launch vehicle makes significant use
of composites, and during flight, the shroud of the Ares V
will separate into four petals to release the Lunar Lander. In
the design of the structure, the aerodynamic pressure on
the shroud is resolved into internally distributed forces. A
combination of two software packages — HyperSizer structural
sizing software and Abaqus FEA (finite element analysis)
software from SIMULIA (Providence, RI) — was used to
model and simulate this process.