Numerical Rebuilding of Plasma Wind Tunnel Experiments for Investigation of Magnetohydrodynamic Flow Interactions within the EU Project MEESST

Kurzfassung

Atmospheric re-entry is a critical mission phase for crewed spaceflight and sample return missions, which requires careful study of the plasma behavior around the vehicle. This paper describes a numerical rebuilding approach for high-enthalpy plasma flows in PWT experiments with the CFD code URANUS-2D. Therefore, test conditions with high enthalpies of 60 MJ kg-1 and 80 MJ kg-1 were characterized, corresponding to highly elliptical and hyperbolic entry trajectories, respectively. The following report presents the numerical simulation results and their subsequent comparison to the experimental values, illustrating high levels of agreement for the highly elliptical condition and highlighting the need for further examination for the hyperbolic re-entry condition.