Comparative studies of shock-wave boundary-layer interactions in Earth and Mars atmospheres

Abstract

Investigations of ramp-induced shock-wave boundary-layer interaction have been carried out for real gas flows of air and carbon dioxide through hypersonic laminar flow simulations corresponding to Earth and Mars atmospheres. An in-house-developed solver, which accounts for the real gas effects, has been employed for these studies. Effects of various parameters like wall temperature, freestream stagnation enthalpy, freestream Mach number, and blunt leading edge are explored on the intensity of shock-wave boundary-layer interaction (SWBLI). In either case, an increase in separation length is observed with an increase in wall temperature and a decrease in Mach number as well as freestream stagnation enthalpy. Here, the intensity of alteration is always noted to have a higher percentage for the Mars gas model. Further, separation length is found to be almost equal for the same wall to total temperature ratio in both of the flow mediums. The present study also affirms the fact that the leading edge bluntness can be used as a tool to reduce the size of the separation region in these planetary atmospheres. Revised correlations have been proposed for hypersonic Earth atmospheric flow with real gas effects to predict the extent of upstream influence and separation bubble size. The outcomes of simulations have also helped to device new correlations for these flow features of SWBLI for Mars atmospheric conditions. In all, the need for consideration of real gas effects and an exclusive real gas flow solver for the Mars atmosphere are the prominent recommendations of current studies.