Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Grainger College of Engineering have made a groundbreaking discovery in understanding hypersonic vehicles’ interactions with gases in the air. Using a 3D simulation, they revealed breaks in the flow within shock layers around conically shaped objects traveling at Mach speeds.
The team, led by Dr. Deborah Levin and PhD student Irmak Taylan Karpuzcu, used the Frontera computer system to run simulations that provided new information on how flow impacts surface properties in hypersonic vehicles. They found that breaks in the flow occur near the cone’s tip and are more pronounced when molecules are closer together.
The researchers applied a triple-deck theory linear stability analysis to explain the unexpected flow behavior. Their simulation revealed that as Mach speeds increase, shockwaves move closer to the surface, promoting instabilities. The team used a Monte Carlo sampling method to track billions of particles in their simulations and developed an in-house software that made it efficient to run the simulation on parallel processors.
The breakthrough opens the door to designing faster and more efficient hypersonic vehicles that can withstand extreme conditions. The research, published in Physical Review Fluids, provides new insights into hypersonic flow behavior and could lead to significant advancements in aerospace engineering.
Source: https://thedebrief.org/new-hypersonic-flight-simulations-just-revealed-something-shocking-that-researchers-didnt-expect