ALBERT

Description: New research on hypersonic vehicles, such as the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP), has raised concerns about the effects of shock-wave interference on various structural components of the craft. State-of-the-art aerothermal analysis software is inadequate to predict local flow and heat flux in areas of extremely high heat transfer, such as the surface impingement of an Edney-type supersonic jet. EASI revives and updates older computational methods for calculating inviscid flow field and maximum heating from shock wave interference. The program expands these methods to solve problems involving the six shock-wave interference patterns on a two-dimensional cylindrical leading edge with an equilibrium chemically reacting gas mixture (representing, for example, the scramjet cowl of the NASP). The inclusion of gas chemistry allows for a more accurate prediction of the maximum pressure and heating loads by accounting for the effects of high temperature on the air mixture. Caloric imperfections and specie dissociation of high-temperature air cause shock-wave angles, flow deflection angles, and thermodynamic properties to differ from those calculated by a calorically perfect gas model. EASI contains pressure- and temperature-dependent thermodynamic and transport properties to determine heating rates, and uses either a calorically perfect air model or an 11-specie, 7-reaction reacting air model at equilibrium with temperatures up to 15,000 K for the inviscid flowfield calculations. EASI solves the flow field and the associated maximum surface pressure and heat flux for the six common types of shock wave interference. Depending on the type of interference, the program solves for shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction, expansion-fan/boundary-layer interaction, attaching shear layer or supersonic jet impingement. Heat flux predictions require a knowledge (from experimental data or relevant calculations) of a pertinent length scale of the interaction. Output files contain flow-field information for the various shock-wave interference patterns and their associated maximum surface pressure and heat flux predictions. EASI is written in FORTRAN 77 for a DEC VAX 8500 series computer using the VAX/VMS operating system, and requires 75K of memory. The program is available on a 9-track 1600 BPI magnetic tape in DEC VAX BACKUP format. EASI was developed in 1989. DEC, VAX, and VMS are registered trademarks of the Digital Equipment Corporation.