TURBULENCE MODELS FOR ACCURATE AEROTHERMAL PREDICTION IN HYPERSONIC FLOWS

Accurate description of the aerodynamic and aerothermal environment is crucial to the integrated design and optimization for high performance hypersonic vehicles. In the simulation of aerothermal environment, the effect of viscosity is crucial. The turbulence modeling remains a major source of uncertainty in the computational prediction of aerodynamic forces and heating. In this paper, three turbulent models were studied: the one-equation eddy viscosity transport model of Spalart-Allmaras, the Wilcox k-ω model and the Menter SST model. For the k-ω model and SST model, the compressibility correction, press dilatation and low Reynolds number correction were considered. The influence of these corrections for flow properties were discussed by comparing with the results without corrections. In this paper the emphasis is on the assessment and evaluation of the turbulence models in prediction of heat transfer as applied to a range of hypersonic flows with comparison to experimental data. This will enable establishing factor of safety for the design of thermal protection systems of hypersonic vehicle.