Assessment of turbulence models in hypersonic reacting three-dimensional
flow around re-entry flight vehicles
- Funding Agency: Indian Space Research Organization
- Project Summary: Hypersonic vehicles like atmospheric re-entry capsules are subjected to large
aero-thermal loads. Prediction of these high Mach number flow field with non-equilibrium
thermo-chemistry is a challenging task. High Reynolds number at lower altitudes trajectory points
often results in a turbulent wake. Transition to turbulence significantly increase heat transfer to
the vehicle walls. Uncertainties in physical modeling and numerical methodology often results in
large error in CFD predictions, which are compensate by a large safety factor is in the design of
heat shields. In this project, we compute the flow around realistic re-entry configurations and
compare results with in-flight and experimental measurements to assess and validate CFD
capability for re-entry predictions. The focus is to study the afterbody flowfield and the associated
aero-thermodynamic predictions. Test cases include a range of realistic configurations – from
perfect gas to non-equilibrium thermo-chemistry, steady and unsteady wakes, laminar to turbulent
flow, and range of geometries and angles of attack. It is shown that a combination of
sophisticated body-fitted grids and efficient numerical algorithms currently used in CFD
codes can yield accurate predictions of afterbody flowfield.
- Total Project outlay: Rs. 22.8 lakhs
- Duration and year of initiation: Three years. 2008.