Three-Dimensional Viscous Flowfield Computations in a Streamline Coordinate System

Abstract

A method of predicting the three-dimensional laminar hypersonic viscous flowfield over a body at very high angles of attack has been developed by using the parabolized Navier-Stokes equations in a streamline coordinate system. At a very high angle of attack, the primary flow direction deviates substantially from the marching coordinate direction of the conventional body-generator coordinate direction. Hence, in the present approach the viscous flow equations are parabolized along the surface streamline direction instead of the body-generator coordinate direction, which reduces the restriction on the angle of attack of a flight vehicle. The streamline traces on the body surface are evaluated from a three-dimensio nal inviscid flowfield solution. Computational results for a test case have been obtained by both the present streamline approach (SLPNS) and the conventional body-generator coordinate method (PNS) for the purpose of comparison. The SLPNS results for the test case at moderate angle of attack compare well with conventional PNS results.