Aerothermodynamic Characteristics in the Hypersonic Continuum-Rarefied Transitional Regime

Stagnation pressure and heating for cylinders and spheres representative of wing leading edges and nose sections for small-scale space transportation vehicles are presented for various Knudsen numbers at Earth entry conditions that bridge from the free molecular to continuum regimes. CFD, DSMC, and collisionless DSMC are used to span Knudsen numbers from 0.001 to 100 with the CFD/DSMC overlap at a Knudsen number of 0.01 and the DSMC/collisionless DSMC overlap at 10. The present results include density contours, density and temperature along the stagnation streamline for all cases, and stagnation pressure and heat transfer coefficient as a function of Knudsen number.