Hypersonic Shock Wave Impingement on Turbulent Boundary Layers: Computational Analysis and Uncertainty

Abstract

Current status of computational uncertainty for impinging hypersonic shock wave turbulent boundary-layer interactions (SWTBLIs) is evaluated by comparison of computational results with vetted experiments. Employed is one of NASA’s production real gas Reynolds-averagedNavier–Stokes finite volume codes, DPLR, alongwith several commonly used turbulence models. Uncertainty and residual errors, inherent to the analysis and turbulence model implementation, are numerically evaluated for physics quantities of interest. These uncertainty results should prove of value to computational practitioners and developers and to designers making use of modern computational methods to innovate and develop hypersonic hardware such as prototype scramjet engines. Reported are statistical means, variances, and confidence limits of uncertainty measures for the physics quantities of interest to reveal the certitude with which computations of impinging hypersonic SWTBLIs can be relied. A hybrid computational fluid dynamics correlation approach yields improved peak heating estimates in the vicinity of SWTBLIs.