Numerical analysis of thermal radiation noise of shock layer over an infrared optical dome at near-ground altitudes

Abstract

To examine the effect of atmospheric trace species on the infrared thermal radiation of a supersonic dome, a series of radiation characteristics with different geometry sizes at near-ground altitudes were investigated numerically. The conjugate heat transfer method was applied to build the heat transfer model of the optical dome. Three major radiating species of H2O, CO2, and CO were taken into account in the shock layer. A line-by-line (LBL) method was used for evaluating the radiative properties of species. A line-of-sight (LOS) approach was applied to solve the radiative transfer equation (RTE). The simulated and measured results of the dome were also proposed to validate the numerical method. The effects of the dome geometry size, the dome material and the time-varying altitude on the infrared radiation noise were studied in detail. The results show that the altitude-varying radiation intensity along the LOS is related to the ambient density and velocity. The variation of the dome radius is proportional to the total radiation received on the dome surface. It is observed that the maximum radiation intensity along the LOS does not occur in the normal direction of the receiving point, but it is determined by both the flow field parameters and the path length. Also, the radiation increment corresponding to different dome sizes approximately obeys a Gaussian distribution related to the product of density and velocity.