Sergey T. Surzhikov

P1 Approximation Applied to the Radiative Heating of Descent Spacecraft

The P1 approximation of the spherical harmonics method is applied for the radiative heating calculation of space vehicles entering Mars’s atmosphere. Surface radiative heating of a spherical space vehicle and a Pathfinder-shape space vehicle in a viscous, heat conductive, and chemically nonequilibriumgasmixture is studied.Unstructured grids are used to integrate the radiation heat transfer equation. The multigroup spectral model is applied to describe the optical properties of absorbing and emitting media. The chemical model includes 10 species and 79 reactions. Two physically and chemically nonequilibriumpoints of trajectory are studied. Satisfactory agreement has been obtained between the P1 approximation and the ray-tracing method. Two algorithms have also been proposed to avoid physical inaccuracy of the P1 approximation in optically thin gas.

Molecular dynamics-based unstructured grid generation method for aerodynamic applications

Abstract A new approach to triangular mesh generation based on the molecular dynamics method is proposed. Mesh nodes are considered as interacting particles. After the node placement by molecular dynamics simulation, well-shaped triangles or tetrahedra can be created after connecting the nodes by Delaunay triangulation or tetrahedrization. Some examples are considered in order to illustrate the method’s ability to generate a mesh for an aircraft with a complicated boundary. Mesh adaptation technology for molecular dynamics simulation is presented.

Plasma dynamics for aerospace engineering

Charge conservation law, 76, 149 Charge number density, 75 Charge particle mobility, 32 Chemical equilibrium condition, 186 Chemical reaction constant, 198– 199 Backward reaction, 198 Forward reaction, 198 Chernyi et al. Ionization model, 206 Collision Cross section, 108– 109, 113, 115, 117, 151, 190, 251, 255, 306 Complex wave number, 290 Constitutive relationship for electromagnetic variables, 77– 78 Coulomb logarithm kinetic model, 206 Coulomb’s law, 4, 5 Counterlowing plasma jet injection, 369– 371 Long penetration monde, 370 Short penetration mode, 370 Cutoff frequency of wave guide, 48 Cyclotron/ Larmor frequency, 8 Cyclotron/ Larmor radius, 9

Nonequilibrium Radiation Heat Transfer in Hypersonic Flow

A multi-group spectral method is integrated into an interdisciplinary computational physics formulation for nonequilibrium hypersonic flows. The developed simulation capability has been successfully applied first to study the Stardust capsule earth reentry via an axisymmetric approximation. Then the three-dimensional calculations of radiative heating for the capsule duplicating the flight condition are performed at an angle of attack of 8 o on six stages of earth reentry trajectory. Radiative heat transfer is calculated by the radiation intensity equation including the most dominant radiative mechanisms of absorption and emission. The aerodynamic and radiative interaction is found to be accentuated at the initial reentry stage to alternate the thermodynamic condition and standoff distance of the shock layer over the Stardust capsule. The computational results agree very well with data in literature and bring new insights into the interdisciplinary fluid dynamics.