Shock interference prediction using direct simulation Monte Carlo

The shock interaction produced when an incident shock impinges on an inlet cowl lip is investigated for a cowl lip radius of 0.1 in. and flight conditions of Mach 15 and 35-km altitude. This problem is of interest in the design of hypersonic flight vehicles because the interference heating at the cowl lip surface from such a shock interaction is expected to be very high and the design of adequate thermal protection in this region will be challenging. Noncontinuum effects may be significant at this combination of altitude and small dimensions. If this is so, a computational solution based on the Navier-Stokes equations could significantly overpredict the surface heating on the cowl lip. Therefore, a kinetic theory solution technique, direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), is used to predict the flowfield and surface heating. The details of modeling this problem and some preliminary results are presented. The same qualitative flow patterns are seen with DSMC and a continuum solution of the shock interference case, but the peak heating predicted with DSMC is somewhat lower.