Two-layer convective heating prediction procedures and sensitivities for blunt body reentry vehiclesThis paper provides a description of procedures typically used to predict convective heating rates to hypersonic reentry vehicles using the two-layer method. These procedures were used to compute the pitch-plane heating distributions to the Apollo geometry for a wind tunnel test case and for three flight cases. Both simple engineering methods and coupled inviscid/boundary layer solutions were used to predict the heating rates. The sensitivity of the heating results in the choice of metrics, pressure distributions, boundary layer edge conditions, and wall catalycity used in the heating analysis were evaluated. Streamline metrics, pressure distributions, and boundary layer edge properties were defined from perfect gas (wind tunnel case) and chemical equilibrium and nonequilibrium (flight cases) inviscid flow-field solutions. The results of this study indicated that the use of CFD-derived metrics and pressures provided better predictions of heating when compared to wind tunnel test data. The study also showed that modeling entropy layer swallowing and ionization had little effect on the heating predictions.
Document ID
19930062512
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Bouslog, Stanley A. (NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
An, Michael Y. (NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Wang, K. C. (NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Tam, Luen T. (Lockheed Engineering and Sciences Co. Houston, TX, United States)
Caram, Jose M. (NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)