Application of a Relaxation Method for Real Gas Flow Over a Reentry Configuration
Suryakant P. Nagdewe, Gopal R. Shevare and Basant K. Gupta
Hyperbolic system of equations with stiff relaxation term are being identified as novel method of predicting long time behavior of systems such as gas at high temperatures/real gas with two time scales, one for thermodynamic process and the other for fluid dynamic process. A method called energy relaxation method or ERM is described within the framework of the theory of hyperbolic equations with a stiff source term. The chosen numerical scheme models relaxation effects, which take care of thermo-non-equilibrium and are capable of modeling high speed flows. Validation has been carried out for 1-D and 2-D test cases available in the literature for the effectiveness of this approach. Flow over a complex 3-D reentry capsule geometry configuration has been carried out and compared with experimental results. Thus ERM is an efficient approach in computing real gas flows and can be extended for design of hypersonic vehicles.