Nonequilibrium Effects on Prediction of Aerothermodynamic Loading for a Double Cone

There is a recent re-interest in hypersonic flight with special attention on the capability of numerical simulations. A recent set of experiments with equilibrium freestream conditions was performed at the Calspan University at Buffalo Research Center and is a bench test for assessment of computational fluid dynamics capabilities. Previous calculations showed significant discrepancies between the numerical and experimental peak surface heat transfers and pressures. In this paper, the effect of the Park 1 thermochemistry model and vibrational translational energy transfer on the prediction of the surface heat transfer and surface pressure is examined. The effects of both models on the predicted peak values are negligible. However, the calculations with no thermochemistry and vibrational translational energy transfer show the best prediction of the separation region size.