Closely coupled flowfield-radiation interactions during hypersonic reentry

A one-dimensional tangent slab radiative transport solver is developed to model radiation in nonequilibrium hypersonic flows. The solver is line-by-line accurate and (by making use of attached spectral databases) efficient, allowing for direct coupling to hypersonic computational fluid dynamics codes. Modifications to the spectral databases include a hybrid line-by-line-gray solver and a molecular cross-section method, which is based on the assumption of a single representative temperature. These modifications decrease computational costs to allow for tight flow coupling hypersonic computational fluid dynamics solvers, but they maintain line-by-line accuracy. The radiation code is verified by comparison with NEQAIR, an established radiation solver. The solver is then integrated into the continuum computational fluid dynamics solver DPLR, and coupled simulations are performed for the flowfields of the Stardust sample return capsule and the Orion crew exploration vehicle.