Rare ed Transitional Bridging of Blunt Body Aerodynamics

Bridging relations are frequently used to provide engineering aerodynamic predictions in the transitional regime between free-molecular and continuum ows. Such predictions are important for mission studies of high-speed planetary entry vehicles to provide accurate analysis of trajectory dynamics, vehicle stability, and landing footprint. However, empirical parameters in these bridging relations must be derived from available experimental, ight, and computational data, where the latter is often generated using Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) methods. Therefore, bridging relations have been sought that are applicable to a wide range of vehicles over a wide range of conditions and use a minimum number of empirical parameters [1, 2]. In the absence of a \universal" bridging relation, it is desirable to reduce the experimental and computational e ort required to \calibrate" the bridging function for a particular class of vehicles.