Comparison of Models for Aerothermal Load Prediction using Coupled Trajectory Simulations of a High Lift Reentry Vehicle

Abstract

This paper uses a high lift reentry vehicle geometry to get unsteady RANS results for aerothermal heating on the out- and inside of the body using the DLR TAU code coupled with a structural solver. The DLR CoNF²aS² toolchain (Coupled Numerical Fluid Flight Mechanic And Structure Simulation) is used to perform a coupled Fluid/Structure/Flight-mechanic simulation along the given flight trajectory. From these high-fidelity results in a second step a database along the trajectory is produced, containing the heat flux and temperature distribution on the surface. Afterwards a modified trajectory is calculated and the heating gets interpolated from the database heat flux along the new trajectory and compared with the initial computed flight path. This will speed up the design process of future vehicle geometries regarding TPS and trajectory development.