Nonequilibrium hypersonic stagnation flow with arbitrary surface catalycity including low reynolds number effects

Abstract

Dissociated stagnation point flow on highly cooled blunt bodies in a hypersonic stream of air or diatomic gas is considered, including low Reynolds number effects and nonequilibrium chemical reaction throughout the shock layer. An arbitrary atom recombination rate on the surface is allowed. Based on the continuum thin shock layer model of Cheng, it is shown that in many applications the significant gas phase reaction effects occur in a generalized nonequilibrium vorticity-interaction flow regime, including the transition from recombination rate to dissociation rate-controlled behavior. An approximate analytical solution is given for this regime which predicts atom concentrations and nonequilibrium heat transfer within 10 per cent of exact numerical solutions down to shock layer Reynolds numbers of 100.