Numerical investigation of blunt body's heating load reduction with combination of spike and opposing jet

In the design of the new generation reusable re-entry space vehicle, how to effectively reduce the heating load is important. In this paper, the thermal protection system combining the spike technology with the opposing jet technology is investigated. The three-dimensional compressible Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations are simulated and Menter's shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model is applied. Also, the all-speed flux scheme called E-AUSMPWAS is adopted. The grid study is done and the numerical procedure is validated. Models with spikes of different lengths and opposing jets of different pressures are compared. Results show that the total pressure of the jet and the length of the spike have significant influences on the peak heating load of the vehicle. Also, the total heating load can reduce almost 95% compared to the base model. The findings suggest that the thermal protection system, which combines the spike technology with the opposing jet technology, is promising to be widely used in the design of the new generation reusable re-entry space vehicle. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.