Numerical simulation of hypersonic thermochemical nonequilibrium flows using nonlinear coupled constitutive relations

To predict aeroheating performance of hypersonic vehicles accurately in thermochemical nonequilibrium flows accompanied by rarefaction effect, a Nonlinear Coupled Constitutive Relations (NCCR) model coupled with Gupta’s chemical models and Park’s two-temperature model is firstly proposed in this paper. Three typical cases are intensively investigated for further validation, including hypersonic flows over a two-dimensional cylinder, a RAM-C II flight vehicle and a type HTV-2 flight vehicle. The results predicted by NCCR solution, such as heat flux coefficient and electron number densities, are in better agreement with those of direct simulation Monte Carlo or flight data than Navier-Stokes equations, especially in the extremely nonequilibrium regions, which indicates the potential of the newly-developed solution to capture both thermochemical and rarefied nonequilibrium effects. The comparisons between the present solver and NCCR model without a two-temperature model are also conducted to demonstrate the significance of vibrational energy source term in the accurate simulation of high-Mach flows.