Modeling Laminar-to-Turbulent Transition in the Panel Test Facility Arcjet

Abstract

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) laminar-to-turbulence transition model was developed for the NASA Ames Research Center’s 20 MW Panel Test Facility (PTF). Surface pressure, heat flux to a water-cooled plate, and surface temperature on a tile plate coated with reaction-cured glass were measured across several conditions in the facility and compared with laminar and fully turbulent CFD simulations. The potential for bypass transition in the PTF nozzle was assessed via application of the Langtry–Menter four-equation transitional shear-stress transport (SST) model. Results from the transition model were inconsistent with measurements. Flow interaction with a boundary-conditioning plate feature inside the nozzle was also investigated as a potential source of laminar-to-turbulent transition, using two turbulence models with specified transition locations. The Baldwin–Lomax turbulence model was configured to simulate a transition at the upstream edge of the boundary conditioning plate and produced results consistent with the surface pressure measurements, but not the cold-wall heat flux. Finally, the SST turbulence model was calibrated to transition at the upstream edge of the boundary conditioning plate and produced results consistent with both the surface pressure and cold-wall heat flux measurements. The SST-based model demonstrated reasonable agreement with surface temperature measurements on the reaction-cured glass tile, albeit with some discrepancies.