Direct simulation of fluid-structure interaction in compression ramp with embedded compliant panel

Sustained flight at hypersonic speeds presents an enduring challenge to robust vehicle design and control. An extreme aerothermal environment acting on geometrically-thin, multi-functional structures can result in significant structural deformations of the vehicle and/or its control surfaces. In particular, the adverse pressure gradient generated by a compression ramp can produce large regions of separated flow with the potential to adversely influence accurate prediction of the surface pressure using traditional hypersonic methods such as piston theory. The present work details high-fidelity, coupled aeroelastic simulations of laminar, unsteady 2D flow at M_∞ =6.04 over a 35-degree compression ramp with an embedded compliant panel. Surface-pressure, skin friction, and heat transfer generated by the corner Shock Wave Boundary Layer Interaction (SWBLI) are compared between rigid and compliant configurations. A reduction in heat transfer is observed for a majority of compliant cases relative to the rigid case, while heat transfer analogies were found to be inaccurate for the compliant cases. Several aerodynamic reduced-order models (ROMs) are compared to the simulation data, and a simple modification is proposed which is found to improve the model accuracy considerably.