Uncertainty Analysis of Mars Entry Flows over a Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator

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A detailed uncertainty analysis for high-fidelity flowfield simulations over a fixed aeroshell of hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator scale for Mars entry is presented for fully laminar and turbulent flows at peak stagnation-point heating conditions. This study implements a sparse-collocation approach based on stochastic expansions for efficient and accurate uncertainty quantification under a large number of uncertainty sources in the computational model. The convective and radiative heating and shear stress uncertainties are computed over the hypersonic inflatable aerodynamic decelerator surface and are shown to vary due to a small fraction of 65 flowfield and radiation modeling parameters considered in the uncertainty analysis. The main contributors to the convective heating uncertainty near the stagnation point are the , , and CO–O binary collision interactions, freestream density, and freestream velocity for both boundary-layer flows. In laminar flow, exothermic recombination reactions are more important at the shoulder. The main contributors to radiative heating at the nose and flank were the dissociation rate and CO heavy-particle excitation rates, whereas the freestream density showed importance toward the shoulder. The interaction and freestream velocity and density control the wall shear stress uncertainty.