A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF CHEMICAL AND THERMAL NONEQUILIBRIUM IN HYPERSONIC FLOWS BASED ON ELEMENTARY PROCESSES

The renewed interest in hypersonic flows has created a large demand fo r physico-chemical models for air flow computations around reentry bod ies. It is obvious, that besides the improvement of mathematical algor ithms for solving the Euler or Navier-Stokes equations detailed physic o-chemical models for air in chemical and thermal nonequilibrium are n eeded for a realistic prediction of hypersonic flowfields. In this pap er we present a model, based on elementary physico-chemical processes, for a detailed description of the chemical nonequilibrium together wi th the excitation of internal degrees of freedom. Results show the str ong influence of thermal nonequilibrium on the flowfields.