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12.4 Application 255

12.4 Application

11.4.1 Flow over Shuttle Nose and Cockpit

During reentry at high-speed, the Shuttle is subjected to
high aerodynamic heating and pressure. Inviscid flow analysis is
normally used as the first step to provide flow behavior around the
vehicle. The analysis also provides good estimation of the
aerodynamic pressure on the vehicle body. As shown in the figure,
the Shuttle geometry is rather complicated. The flow domain
surrounding the vehicle is thus huge and complicated too. Such the
flow domain requires a large amount of small cells to capture
detailed flow behavior.

In order to demonstrate the software capability for
predicting complicated flow behavior, we reduce the problem size
by concentrating only the two-dimensional domain in front of the
nose and cockpit as highlighted in the figure. The flow condition is
at Mach 3 and five degrees angle of attack. The flow boundary
conditions include the specified horizontal velocity of 1,041 m/s.
3
The air density is 1.18 kg/m at the temperature of 300 K.