Application of CFD to aerothermal heating problems

Numerical solutions of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations by an alternating direction implicit scheme, applied to two experimental investigations are presented. The first is cooling by injection of a gas jet through the nose of an ogive-cone, and the second is the aerothermal environment in the gap formed by the wing and elevon section of a test model of the space shuttle. The simulations demonstrate that accurate pressure calculations are easily obtained on a coarse grid, while convergence is obtained after the residual reduces by four orders of magnitude. Accurate heating rates, however, require a fine grid solution, with convergence requiring at least a reduction of six orders of magnitude in the residual. The effect of artificial dissipation on numerical results is also assessed.