Hypersonic Flow over X-38 on Unstructured/Hybrid Meshes

Abstract

The DLR code TAU is applied to the computation for X-38, with the hybrid grids produced by unstructured mesh generation system CENTAUR. In the solver AUSMDV and Van-Leer scheme with Haenel modification are adopted. The solution is advanced in time by 3-stage Runge-Kutta time stepping scheme with convergence accelerated to steady state by local time stepping. An adaptation method is used in this research in order to produce efficient grids and to get accurate results. Meanwhile, the effects of grid density on aerodynamic forces, especially on heat flux are also investigated. The solutions from the TAU code are compared with the wind tunnel data and structured grid results obtained by another DLR code, CEVCATS-N. The results indicate that the agreements are rather good not only for aerodynamic data but also for aeroheating data.