Designing a safer parachute

Jumping out of a plane can seem like the riskiest part of a skydive, but the type of parachute used can greatly affect the success of a freefall.

Traditional parachute designs with circumferential closure mechanisms can inflate unevenly upon descent, causing unbalanced stress distribution and other safety issues.

Radial parachutes can solve many of these problems via an internal parachute and intake control system, and Guan et al. created a simulation to study the fluid dynamics impacting their inflation.

“In a circumferentially closed parachute, air enters primarily through the bottom of the canopy, causing a high-speed flow that leads to the formation of a high-pressure zone at the top,” said author Gang Yu. “In contrast, the radial closure mechanism of our design creates a more controlled airflow, with the internal parachute generating a low-speed vortex at the center and promoting a more uniform distribution of pressure across the canopy.”

The researchers used the arbitrary Euler-Lagrangian model to simulate the flow field and the coupled dynamic model of two parachute structures. This allowed them to understand why the radially closed parachute was faster to inflate and did so in a more uniform fashion.

“This research not only demonstrates that small design changes can significantly improve parachute performance but also reveals how the control of airflow and pressure distribution during the inflation process can lead to safer and more efficient parachutes,” Yu said.

The authors plan to refine their model by adding more real-life parameters such as crosswind, variations in descent velocities, and parachute materials into the model. They hope this research will inspire future parachute design innovations, making them safer and more reliable.

Source: “Inflation process of radially closed parachute,” by Le Guan, Gang Yu, Xia He, and Run Li, Physics of Fluids (2025). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0249139 .