Viscous shock-layer solutions with nonequilibrium chemistry for hypersonic flows past slender bodies

Laminar nonequilibrium heat transfer to slender vehicles is discussed, with heating-rate results presented as a ratio of the noncatalytic to the corresponding fully catalytic value to illustrate the maximum potential for a heating reduction in dissociated nonequilibrium flow at a given flight condition. Larger blunted cone half-angles are shown to produce the most significant nonequilibrium effects at distances beyond 100 nose radii, except in the fore-cone region. Increasing nose bluntness is found to produce large reductions in the ratio for the smaller cone angles at relatively large downstream surface lengths. It is noted that the nose radius and freestream density are not independent scaling parameters in nonequilibrium flow.