Validation of Hypersonic Flow Simulations via Molecular-Scale Physics
Abstract
The numerical simulation of hypersonic flows is a well-developed capability. It is now possible to simulate full vehicles, resolving relevant geometric details and including effects of finite-rate chemical kinetics and gas surface interactions. However, there are known deficiencies in the governing equations, models, and numerical methods that are used to represent these flows. Thus, the overall goal of the research program was to use fundamental molecular-scale data to validate, improve, and extend the existing numerical simulation approaches for hypersonic and high-temperature flows. This work has resulted in the ability to perform more accurate and reliable simulations of Air Force relevant hypersonic flows. The research leveraged extensive prior work on the development of computational chemistry data and an array of numerical simulation method to achieve this goal. The Boltzmann equation is the most basic description of a flowing gas, and the compressible Navier-Stokes equations for a mixture of non-reacting gases can be derived from this equation. This derivation requires that the velocity distribution function is not far from equilibrium,however there is no such fully complete derivation available for a reacting gas. Kinetic theory provides expressions for the mixture viscosity and mass diffusivity of the gas mixture. It is computationally intensive use the complete kinetic theory results, and significant simplifications are made in all simulation codes.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 03, 2022
- Accession Number
- AD1231101
Entities
People
- Graham Vardy Candler
Organizations
- Regents of the University of Minnesota