Rowan-Gollan-PhD-Thesis - Mechanical Engineering - University of ...

List of Figures
1.1 Peak heating etimates for various atmospheric-entry vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Modelling components for a continuum-based aerothermal analysis . . . . . . . 9
2.1 Schematic of blunt body flow at hypersonic speeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2 Velocity-altitude map of important physical and chemical processes . . . . . . . . 19
2.3 Variation of the ratio of specific heats with temperature for air . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.1 Contours of primitive variables for a Method of Manufactured Solutions flow field 33
3.2 Contours of generated source terms for a Method of Manufaactured Solutions
flow field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3 Computed global discretisation error based on L2 error norm for density . . . . . 35
3.4 Analytical solution for an oblique detonation wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.5 Computed global discretisation error based on L1 error norm . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.6 A typical setup for a numerical simulation of a D = 7.9375 mm sphere . . . . . . 41
3.7 Procedure for determining shock location in the numerical solutions . . . . . . . 42
3.8 Shock detachment distance for a 7.9375 mm diameter sphere fired into noble gases 44
3.9 Demonstration of the grid dependency on the extracted value of shock location . 45
4.1 Evolution of CHI as a function of time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.2 Chemically relaxing flow behind a strong normal shock using Marrone’s kinetic
scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.3 Chemically relaxing flow behind a strong normal shock using the reaction rate
data proposed by Gupta et al. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.4 Ignition delay times for hydrogen combustion in air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4.5 Shock detachment distance for spheres fired into air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.6 Schematic of the problem arrangement for the interdiffusion of two semi-infinite
slabs of gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.7 Profiles for the mass fractions of nitrogen and oxygen in the binary diffusion
verification problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.2 Velocity-altitude map of important physical and chemical processes . . . . . . . . 84
5.1 Relaxation time for N2-N2 V-T exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.2 Transition probability, P 1,0
0,1 (N2, O2), for V-V exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
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