DIRECT SIMULATION OF HYPERSONIC VEHICLE FLOWS

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF HIGH INTERACTION HYPERSONIC FLOWS IN THE TRANSITION REGION IS PROPOSED. IDEALIZED AXISYMMETRIC AND PLANAR CONFIGURATIONS WILL BE INVESTIGATED OVER A WIDE RANGE OF FREESTREAM CONDITIONS FROM NEAR-CONTINUUM TO FREE MOLECULAR. OUR DIRECT SIMULATION MONTE CARLO CODE WILL BE USED FOR COMPUTING THESE HIGHLY NONEQUILIBRIUM FLOWS WITH EMBEDDED SHOCK WAVE STRUCTURES. THIS IN-HOUSE CODE ALLOWS FOR MULTICOMPONENT, REACTING SPECIES, NONEQUILIBRIUM MOLECULAR MODELS, AND VARIETY OF BOUNDING SURFACES BOTH SOLID AS WELL AS FLUID. A SERIES OF SIMULATION RUNS WILL BE COMPUTED SO THAT A PARAMETRIC STUDY CAN BE MADE OF FREESTREAM CONDITIONS AND MOLECULAR MODEL DATA. EXISTING DATA FOR HYPERSONIC VEHICLES OPERATING AT VERY HIGH ALTITUDES WILL BE REVIEWED AND COMPARED WITH THE RESULTS OF BOTH SIMULATION RUNS AS WELL AS AVAILABLE CONTINUUM THEORY RESULTS. NEW EXPERIMENTS NEEDED FOR MODEL COMPARISON AND CODE ENHANCEMENTS REQUIRED FOR DESIGN APPLICATIONS WILL BE DELINEATED.