Abstract:
In order to study high-temperature non-equilibrium effects for Mars entry and predict precisely aerothermal environments and aerodynamic characteristics of Mars entry capsules, the numerical methods are developed to simulate the thermo-chemical non-equilibrium flow by considering the chemical reaction, vibrational excitation and thermo-chemical non-equilibrium effects, and surface catalytic and different wall temperature conditions are also taken into account. The methods are validated by comparing the blunt cylinder and MESUR capsule computational results with the corresponding reference and experimental data, and the aerothermal environments and aerodynamic characteristics for typical Mars entry capsules are also studied in this paper by the numerical methods. The results show that:1) under the computational conditions, there are severe chemical non-equilibrium and some thermal non-equilibrium in the flow-fields of Mars entry capsules; 2) the thermodynamic temperature model, reacting model, and surface catalysis conditions have great influence on surface heating rates; 3) the influence of gas models on aerodynamic characteristics is significant, while the influences of wall temperature conditions and surface catalysis on aerodynamic coefficients are weak.