Equilibrium wall-modeled LES of shock-induced aerodynamic heating in hypersonic boundary layers*

Fuselages of high-speed aerospace vehicles are often subject to large thermal loads related to shock-induced phenomena. One important case is that of a hypersonic transitional boundary layer interacting with an oblique shock overriding an isothermal wall. In this study, use of DNS and equilibrium wall-modeled LES (WMLES) is made in order to investigate and predict the physical processes responsible for the intense overheating downstream from the shock-impingement region, where the boundary layer suddenly transitions into turbulence. The influences of inlet disturbances on the solution are studied in both DNS and WMLES settings. A critical incidence angle is predicted above which the boundary layer transitions without inlet disturbances in a regime that also leads to large heat fluxes in the transitional zone.