SUPERSONIC AND HYPERSONIC FLOW COMPUTATIONS FOR THE RESEARCH CONFIGURATION ELAC-I AND COMPARISON TO EXPERIMENTAL-DATA

Object of the present investigation is the numerical prediction of the stationary flow around a space plane. Computations of the three-dimen sional, laminar flow are carried out for a slender model configuration , called ELACI. A space marching method based on the time-dependent Th in Layer Approximation of the Navier-Stokes equations has been develop ed, which enables efficient calculations of the flow field for a wide range of supersonic and hypersonic free stream conditions. The solutio n is obtained by marching in the main flow direction by determining th e steady-state solution for each cross-section iteratively. Under the assumption of supersonic outer flow and attached boundary layers in th e streamwise direction the complete viscous flow-field including the c ross-flow separation can be computed. Compared to other solutions of t he Parabolized Navier-Stokes equations no additional assumptions for i mbedded streamwise subsonic regions are necessary. Starting conditions in an initial cross-section are calculated with the same method by as suming conical flow. Results are presented for flows with Mach numbers Ma(infinity) = 2 and Ma(infinity) = 8 and for several angles of attac k. They are compared with experimental results measured at the Aerodyn amisches Institut and at the Stosswellenlabor of the RWTH Aachen.