EVALUATION OF A MULTIGRID-BASED NAVIER-STOKES SOLVER FOR AEROTHERMODYNAMIC COMPUTATIONS

A multigrid acceleration technique developed for solving the three-dim ensional Navier-Stokes equations is used for computing high-Mach-numbe r flows over configurations of practical interest. An explicit multist age Runge-Kutta time-stepping scheme is used as the basic algorithm. S olutions are presented for a spherically blunted cone at Mach 10 and a modified Shuttle orbiter at Mach 6. The computed surface heat-transfe r distributions are shown to compare well with the experimental data. Effect of grid refinement on computed heat-transfer distributions is a lso examined to assess the numerical accuracy of the computed solution s. The rapid convergence rate associated with multigrid schemes in pre vious applications at transonic speeds is observed at the higher-Mach- number flows investigated here.