Investigation of Hypersonic Flows past the NASA X-24 Lifting Body Vehicle

Abstract

Results for th flap efficiency and flap heating of the NASA X-24 lifting body vehicle are presented. Several Mach numbers, flap deflection angles, angles of attack and Reynolds numbers are considered. Perfect gas flows with constant temperature at wall, equilibrium flow with radiation adiabatic wall and non-equilibrium flow with fully catalytic and finite catalytic wall are studied. The influence of viscous effects is investigated by comparing Euler with laminar and turbulent Navier-Stokes solutions for several flap geometries. The accuracy of the solutions is supported by comparing the numerical results with computations from other sources and also with wind tunnel measurements. Viscous and real gas effects play a dominant role for large flap deflection angles. Both viscous interaction parameters tested do not allow to collapse the data in one curve concerning flap heating. Navier-Stokes results do not correlate with Holden's predictions. Maximum inviscid.