Numerical Simulation of Weakly Ionized Hypersonic Flow for Reentry Configurations

Numerical simulations of axisymmetric flows over reentry configurations at hypersonic conditions using a Navier-Stokes solver are presented. The Navier-Stokes equations are modified using Park’s two-temperature model to account for thermochemical nonequilibrium and weak ionization effects. The finite-volume method is used to solve the set of differential equations. The code has the capability to handle any mixture of hexahedra, tetrahedra, prisms and pyramids in 3D or triangles and quadrilaterals in 2D. The results in this paper only use quadrilaterals. Numerical fluxes between the cells are discretized using a modified Steger-Warming Flux Vector Splitting approach which has low dissipation and is appropriate to calculate boundary layers. A point or line implicit method is used to perform the time integration. Pressure, heat transfer rates and electron number density profiles are compared to available experimental and flight measurements.