Introduction to

Hypersonic Aerothermodynamics

Iain D. Boyd Graham V. Candler

Dept. Aerospace Eng. Dept. Aerospace Eng. & Mech.
University of Michigan University of Minnesota
Ann Arbor, MI Minneapolis, MN

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 1. Hypersonic Gas Dynamics

1.1 Introduction and Examples

Outline (1)
1. Hypersonic Gas Dynamics (1.5 hours)
1.1 Introduction and Examples
1.2 Post-shock conditions: perfect gas vs. equilibrium gas
Iteration approach for post-shock conditions
Examples
1.3 Reacting gas effects:
Finite-rate reactions – nonequilibrium vs. equilibrium
Ionization
Radiation
1.4 Transport phenomena

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 Outline (2)

2. Hypersonic Aerodynamics: Pressure (1.0 hours)

2.1 Exact and approximate equilibrium gas solutions:
Stagnation points
Cones and wedges
2.2 Mach number independence
2.3 Newtonian and Modified Newtonian aerodynamics
2.4 Examples

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 Outline (3)

3. Hypersonic Aerothermodynamics: Heat Transfer (1.0 hours)

3.1 Introduction:
role of aerodynamic heating
hypersonic boundary layers
3.2 Boundary layer equations, Lees-Dorodnitsyn transformation
3.3 Flat plate / wedge / cone solutions
3.4 Stagnation point solution
3.5 Transition to turbulence
3.6 Wall catalysis
3.7 Examples

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 Outline (4)

4. Viscous Interactions (1.0 hours)

4.1 Leading edge interactions
4.2 Effect on high-altitude L/D; scaling for vehicles
4.3 Shock-BL interactions, shock-shock interactions

5. Thermal Protection Systems (1.0 hours)

5.1 Passive:
re-radiative cooling, equilibrium wall boundary condition
role of wall temperature, material properties
examples
5.2 Ablative
Surface ablators
Pyrolyzing ablators

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 Outline (5)

6. Aerothermodynamics of Hypersonic Vehicles (1.0 hours)

Ballistic entry
Lifting capsule re-entry: Apollo
High-lift re-entry: Shuttle
Aerocapture / Aerobraking
Airbreathing scramjets

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 What is Hypersonic Flow?

• Working definition of hypersonic flow:

M = (U / a) >> 1

• Hypersonic aerothermodynamic phenomena:

– strong shock waves with high temperature
– not calorifically perfect (variable γ)
– chemical reactions
– significant surface heat flux
– several different types of vehicles:
• missiles, space planes, capsules, air-breathers

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 Hypersonic Examples:
I. Missiles

• Mission: high-speed delivery of explosives

• Aerodynamics: slender body with blunt nose
• Propulsion: rockets, ramjets
• Examples: AMRV, SCUD, Patriot, Hy-Fly
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 Hypersonic Examples:
II. Space Planes

• Mission: orbital re-entry

• Aerodynamics: gliders with thermal protection
• Propulsion: none (except small control thrusters)
• Examples: Space Shuttle, Buran, Hermes
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 Hypersonic Examples:
III. Air-breathing Systems

• Missions: launch, cruise, orbital re-entry

• Aerodynamics: slender with integrated engines
• Propulsion: ram/scram-jets, rockets, turbojets
• Examples: X-15, NASP, X-43, X-51
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 Hypersonic Examples:
IV. Planetary Entry

• Missions: EDL, aero-braking, aero-capture

• Aerodynamics: very blunt, thick heat shield
• Propulsion: none (sometimes RCS)
• Examples: Apollo, MSL, CEV (Orion)
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 Hypersonic Vehicle
Historical Overview
• Flight vehicles:
– WAC Corporal missile (1949, M~8)
– Vostok I (1961, M~25)
– X-15 (1963-1967, M~7)
– Space Shuttle (1981-???, M~25)
– HyShot (2002, M~8)
– X43 (2004, M>7)
– Hy-CAUSE (2007)
• Recent programs without flight:
– NASP, Hermes, AFE, AOTV (1990)
– VentureStar-X33 (2000)
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 Some Current
Hypersonic Programs

Falcon (DARPA)
HyBoLT (NASA/ATK)

Orion
X51
(NASA)
(AFRL)

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 Hypersonic Tales of Woe

• Hypersonics produces unexpected phenomena

• X15 test flight with dummy scramjet installed:

– unexpected shock interactions generated
– burned holes in connection pylon

• First re-entry of Space Shuttle (STS-1):

– larger than expected nose-up pitch generated
– required near-maximum deflection of body flap

• Shock-shock interactions:
– heating amplified significantly
– leading edges, cowl lips,
engine flow paths

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 Re-entry Trajectories

• Trajectory equations for Earth centered system:

U"˙ L $ U 2' T, U L
= # & 1# ) cos(" )
g W % gR ( γ
T U˙ D
" = + sin(# ) D
W g W
W
• Ballistic missiles:
– mission: short flight, fast impact
– rocket launch, ballistic entry
– no thrust or lift during entry (T=0, L=0)
– fixed flight path at large angle (γ=const)

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 Re-entry Trajectories

• Space Shuttle:
– mission: orbital return
– rocket launch
– equilibrium glide entry
– no thrust, L/D~1, γ~0 (shallow entry)

• Air-breathing vehicle:
– missions: cruise, orbital return
– completely reusable
– powered take-off and entry
1 2
– constant 2 "U for engine efficiency

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 Flight Velocity

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Stagnation Point Heating

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 Stagnation Point
Temperature

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Deceleration Levels

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 1.2 Post-Shock Conditions

• Perfect-gas shock relations:

• Density ratio asymptotes to:

• Pressure and temperature are quadratic in M

– Makes sense: energy is conserved

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 Post-Shock Conditions

• Post-Shock Temperature:

Temperatures rapidly
become huge!

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 Post-Shock Conditions

• Variation of air internal energy with T:

10% departure from

calorically perfect gas
equation of state =
onset of hypersonic flow

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 Post-Shock Conditions

• More fundamentally – 1D gas dynamics:

• Plus equations of state:

Thermally perfect,
calorically imperfect

General equilibrium
gas mixture

• No exact solutions
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 Post-Shock Conditions

• Hypersonic limit:

Can solve for the

thermodynamic state

• Note that post-shock enthalpy and pressure only

depend on upstream conditions in hypersonic limit.

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 Post-Shock Conditions

• Iterative solution to shock relations:

• Guess a value of ε = εi and iterate:

Use tables, NASA CEA, etc.

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 Equilibrium Air

Temperature (K) Z = Compressibility

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 Post-Shock Conditions

• Example: M = 12 at 30 km altitude:

Imperfect Perfect

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 Post-Shock Conditions

• Perfect-gas vs. equilibrium post-shock conditions:

Difference is due to
energy storage in
internal energy
modes + chemistry

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 Post-Shock Conditions

• Post-shock pressure has weak dependence on non-

ideal gas effects (just through (1- ε))
• Post-shock temperature and density have strong Mach
number (free-stream speed) dependence
– Density ratio > (γ + 1)/(γ - 1) = 6
– Temperature decreases significantly
• Concept of γ no longer has much meaning; if:

• Matlab code:
ftp://ftp.aem.umn.edu/users/candler/HEI/mollier.m

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 1.3 Reacting Gas Effects

• Analysis of Earth hypersonic vehicles at U<8km/s:

– 5-species air model sufficient: N2, O2, NO, N, O
• Reactions:
– Dissociation-recombination: N2 + M " N + N + M
O2 + M " O + O + M
NO + M " N + O + M

– Zeldovich exchange:
! N 2 + O " NO + N
!
! NO + O " O2 + N

!
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!
 Finite Rate of Reactions

• For illustration, consider:

– 2-species: N2, N N2 + M " N + N + M
• Each reaction proceeds at a finite rate:
kf1 kf 2
N2 + N2 " N + N + N2 N2 + N " N + N + N
kb1 kb 2
!
• Forward rate coefficients measured experimentally, kf (T)
• Backward rate coefficients from equilibrium constant:
! !
k f "Qproducts
Ke = =
kb "Qreactants
partition functions Q from quantum+statistical mechanics
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!
 Finite Rate of Reactions

• Net rate of change in concentration of a species:

– contributions from forward and backward directions
d[N 2 ]
= "k f 1[N 2 ][N 2 ] " k f 2 [N 2 ][N] + kb1[N][N][N 2 ] + k b 2 [N][N][N]
dt
• Chemical equilibrium:
– final state reached instantaneously
! – production of each species balanced by its destruction
– analytical solution for our system:
"2 m QN2
= exp(#% d /T)
1# " $V QN 2
– α=mass fraction, m=atom mass, ρ=density, V=volume,
θd=dissociation temperature
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 Finite Rate of Reactions

• Chemical equilibrium:
– O2 dissociates before N2 (has lower θd)
– fewer atoms at high pressure (more recombination)

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 Finite Rate of Reactions
• Chemical nonequilibrium:
– equilibrium end state reached only after finite time
– in a flow field, this translates as finite distance

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 Nonequilibrium

• Impact of chemical nonequilibrium:

– chemical composition mainly affects energy of flow
• exothermic reactions consume energy
• catalysis: fraction of atoms reaching the vehicle
surface may recombine releasing heat
– scaling:
• nonequilibrium flow occurs at lower density
and/or smaller body length scales
#$U$ L #$ 1
small Re " large Kn " %
µ$ L &$ L

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! !
 Ionization
• Very high temperature reacting air (U>8km/s):
– N2, O2, NO, N, O, N2+, O2+, NO+, N+, O+, e-
• Reactions:
– dissociation-recombination:
N2 + M " N + N + M
– exchange:
N 2 + O " NO + N
– associative Ionization:
! N + N " N 2+ + e#
– direct Ionization:
! " + " "
N+e #N +e +e

!
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!
 Ionization
• Equilibrium solution (Saha) for [N, N+, e-] system:
"2 T 5/2
2
=C exp(#$ i /T)
1# " p
– φ=ion mole fraction,
– C=constant,
!
– p=pressure,
– θi=ionization
temperature

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 Ionization
• Significance:
– plasma causes communications blackout
– highly catalytic ions are source of heating

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 Radiation
• Another important process at high temperature:
– activation-deactivation: N + e" # N * + e"

– spontaneous emission: N * " N + h#

– analysis is complex, no closed form expressions
!
– research area, e.g. NEQAIR (NASA-ARC)
• Radiative heating!important at U>12km/s:
– e.g. stagnation point heating correlation (Martin)
q˙ rad " RNU 8.5 #1.6
– also proportional to shock layer thickness
– Stardust: radiation provides 10% of total heating
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!
 1.4 Transport Phenomena

• Generated by gradients in flow properties:

– diffusion (Fick’s Law):
dCA
J A = "#DAB
DAB=diffusion coefficient dy
du
– viscosity (Newtonian fluid): " =µ
dy
µ = viscosity coefficient
!
dT
– thermal conduction (Fourier’s Law): q = "#
κ = thermal conductivity
dy
! coefficient

!
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 Diffusion

• Affects continuity and energy equations

• Influences transport of species to surface
• Coefficient evaluation:
3 #mi kT
– for simple gas (self diffusion) Dii =
8 " #$(1,1)
ii

– for gas mixture kT (mi + m j )kT 1

Dij "
p mi m j #$(1,1)
ij
(1,1) !
– " ij
are diffusion collision integrals

– averaged binary coefficient

! D1m often used

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 Viscosity

• Affects momentum and energy equations

• Influences surface shear stress
• Coefficient evaluation:
5 "mi kT
– for simple gas µi =
16 "#(2,2)
ii

– various mixing rules µ = µ("(1,1)

ij ,"(2,2)
ij )

(2,2) !
–" ij
are viscosity collision integrals
!

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 Thermal Conductivity

• Affects energy equations

• Influences surface convective heat flux
• Coefficient evaluation: 5 #mi kT 1 % 9 (
– for simple gas (Eucken) " i = 16 #$(2,2) M '&Cv + 4 Ru *)
ii i

– various mixing rules " = " (#(1,1)

ij ,#(2,2)
ij )
!
– "(2,2)
ij
are again viscosity collision integrals
– curve fits for collision
! integrals from the literature

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