The Effect of Surface Ablation Chemistry on Radiation in Hypersonic Reentry Flows

摘要

The effect of chemical processes at the surface of a spacecraft entering into Earth's atmosphere on the flowfield and radiation around a reentry vehicle is investigated. To simulate thermal ablation at the vehicle's surface a one-dimensional thermal response model is used and loosely coupled with a DSMC flowfield and radiation simulations. Chemical ablation processes of nitridation and oxidation as well as catalytic recombination at the vehicle surface are implemented in DSMC in order to simulate the effect of surface chemical events on the flowfield and the corresponding convective heat flux to the vehicle surface. To examine the effect of the surface condition on the radiation in detail, both the magnitude and the spectral structure of the radiative heat flux to the stagnation point are investigated for cases with different surface conditions.