Calculation of Stagnation-Point Heating Rates Associated with Stardust Vehicle

Abstract

Stagnation-point heating rate is calculated for the Stardust entry vehicle and for its heat-shieldmodels tested in an arcjetwind tunnel. The calculations aremade for the convective component for both the laminar and turbulent cases, the radiative component produced by the gas flow, and the radiative component produced by solid particles. A onedimensional viscous shock layer method is used with an up-to-date thermochemical, gas–surface interaction, radiation, turbulence, and particulate models. For the flight cases, radiation absorption in the boundary layer is found to increase the convective heating rate by a factor of up to two. The calculated sums of all heating rates for the flight cases are nearly the same as those obtained by Olynick et al., and are substantially larger than those by Gupta. The calculated sums of all heating rates for the arcjet test cases are smaller than those calculated by the formula of Fay and Riddell, and are nearly the same as those experimentally determined using copper calorimeters.