Application of the LAURA code for slender-vehicle aerothermodynamics

Application of a three-dimensional thin-layer Navier-Stokes code (LAURA) to compute the laminar and turbulent perfect gas aerothermodynamics of slender vehicles is demonstrated in this paper. Comparison of solutions with experimental data enabled an assessment of the code's aerodynamic heating prediction capabilities. The results show radial grid refinement to a wall cell Reynolds number of 2 to be accurate for predicting aerodynamic heating to a slender cone. Additional comparisons for an 80-deg slab-delta wing, a generic aero-space plane vehicle, and an all-body configuration show the method to be generally accurate using this radial cell spacing. Discrepancies between the predicted and measured heating in a region of crossflow separation on the generic aero-space plane geometry are noted, which indicates the need for further study. Although additional applications and comparisons are required to fully test the LAURA program, the results of this study demonstrate the current level of confidence and the engineering utility of this particular code for slender-vehicle applications.

[1]  P. E. Everhart,et al.  An experimental study of the pressure and heat-transfer distribution on a 70 deg sweep slab delta wing in hypersonic flow , 1963 .

[2]  J. W. Cleary,et al.  Effects of angle of attack and bluntness on laminar heating-rate distributions of a 15 deg cone at a Mach number of 10.6 , 1969 .

[3]  H. Lomax,et al.  Thin-layer approximation and algebraic model for separated turbulent flows , 1978 .

[4]  M. Holden.  Experimental studies of surface roughness, entropy swallowing and boundary layer transition effects on the skin friction and heat transfer distribution in high speed flows , 1982 .

[5]  Peter A. Gnoffo,et al.  Enhancements to Program LAURA for computation of three-dimensional hypersonic flow , 1987 .

[6]  K. Nakahashi,et al.  Self-adaptive-grid method with application to airfoil flow , 1987 .

[7]  Joseph H. Morrison,et al.  Heat transfer and pressure comparisons between computation and wind tunnel for a research hypersonic aircraft , 1989 .

[8]  P. A. Gnoffo,et al.  Point-implicit relaxation strategies for viscous, hypersonic flows , 1989 .

[9]  Sukumar Chakravarthy,et al.  A validation study of four Navier-Stokes codes for high-speed flows , 1989 .

[10]  P. Gnoffo.  An upwind-biased, point-implicit relaxation algorithm for viscous, compressible perfect-gas flows , 1990 .

[11]  Scott L. Lawrence,et al.  Experimental and computational surface and flow-field results for an all-body hypersonic aircraft , 1990 .

[12]  Peter A. Gnoffo,et al.  Code calibration program in support of the Aeroassist Flight Experiment , 1990 .

[13]  Francis A. Greene,et al.  An upwind-biased space marching algorithm for supersonic viscous flow , 1991 .