Numerical Simulation of control of plasma flow with magnetic field for thermal protection in Earth reentry flight

Abstract

The present numerical study examines the possibility and usefulness of the control of weakly ionized plasma flow ahead of a space vehicle by means of the magnetic field for thermal protection in earth reentry flight under the flight conditions at the altitudes from about 72 to 48 km along the real earth reentry trajectory of the blunt body OREX, which was used for an earth reentry experiment in 1994. Numerical results show that the aerodynamic heating can be reduced by applying the magnetic field at the altitude above about 55 km where the weakly ionized plasma is produced behind the bow shock wave, and also that the reduction amount of the aerodynamic heating by applying the magnetic field becomes larger with increasing the altitude. At the altitude of about 60 km, where the aerodynamic heating had the peak value in the OREX experiment, the wall heat flux at the stagnation point and the total aerodynamic heating over the wall surface with applying the magnetic field of about 0.5 T are, respectively, 85% and 67% of their values obtained without applying the magnetic field.