Comparison of Different Fidelity Approaches for the Coupled Aerothermodynamic Heating of Hypersonic Reentry Vehicles

Abstract

In the present study the influence of different fidelity flow solvers and structure models on the aerothermodynamic heating of High Lift Reentry Vehicle (HLRV) is investigated. The study is carried out on a generic waverider (WR) geometry. The reference solution is computed by a high-fidelity unsteady RANS coupled multi-disciplinary simulation. The analysis is performed for the forced flight along a reference trajectory. The coupled calculation leads to a realistic evaluation of the overall heating for the vehicle entering the atmosphere of the Earth. The low-fidelity aerodynamic solution is calculated by the Shock-Expansion method. The aerothermodynamic heating is included by the Eckert-Reference Enthalpy method and the Reynolds analogy. The vehicle structure is represented by a one-dimensional heat conduction solver with a simplified material model. The differences between the models of different fidelity are shown.