Rarefied gas effects on hypersonic flow over a transpiration-cooled flat plate

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of blowing (transpiration flow) on hypersonic flow over a flat plate at different flow regimes. The investigation involves the study of the interaction between the free stream flow of argon gas at Mach 5 and transpiring gas introduced at the fluid–solid interface. The freestream Knudsen number considered for the present analysis are 0.002, 0.01, 0.05, and 0.25, extending from continuum to rarefied through transitional flow conditions. Flow simulations are performed using the open source particle-based direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) solver called Stochastic PArallel Rarefied-gas Time-accurate Analyzer (SPARTA). In the DSMC framework, the transpiring gases are introduced as jets with specified velocity, number density, and temperature uniformly throughout the surface in the direction normal to the surface. The variation in flow field properties, such as density, temperature, and velocity with and without transpiration, is studied. The influence of rarefaction on surface heat flux distribution is studied at different flow Knudsen numbers. Furthermore, the effect of introducing the transpiring gas at different densities into the flow field is investigated and its impact on the surface heat flux is discussed. It is interesting to note that in certain cases, the heat flux actually increases locally as a result of the interaction between transpiring gas and freestream flow.