Numerical Investigation of Fluid-Ablation Interactions in a Mach 5.3 Boundary Layer*

Performing fully-coupled simulations of a transitional boundary layer flowing over an ablative

material is still a difficult task. Most ablation problems of interest evolve over a time scale

of O(10) seconds. With explicit time integration, a tractable direct numerical simulation

(DNS) solution of the fluid can be obtained for only O(10−3) seconds of physical time. This

work attempts to use tight coupling between the two sets of physics in order to simulate

boundary layer transition to turbulence over an ablating flat plate. Of chief interest is the

concurrent influences of unsteady fluid motion on the material response and the material

response on the unsteady fluid motion. Also to be investigated is the legitimacy of various

techniques to maintain tight solver couplings while accelerating the ablation process.

This work has been funded by a CAREER grant by the National Science Foundation under

award CBET-2146100 with Dr. R. Joslin as Program Manager. The authors would also

like to thank Dr. J. McQuaid and Dr. A. Zibitsker for their development of the fluid and

material response codes used in this work, respectively.