Aeroheating and ablation analysis on a spherical geometry in high-speed re-entry flow

A quasi one-dimensional ablation analysis on subliming ablators for a re-entry axisymmetric configuration is discussed. The geometry considered for investigation is a sphere of radius 2.0 m. Numerical simulations are carried out for a freestream Mach number of 5.0, using FLUENT 6.2® considering the flow as laminar and steady. The numerical results of the wall heat flux serve as input to a quasi one-dimensional ablation code developed for subliming ablators, which is based on a front tracking method with the boundary immobilization technique and a self-adjusting time step scheme. The method adopted is capable of altering both the temporal and spatial steps. The general problem of modeling steep gradients is tackled in a judicious manner through a deforming grid formulation with an auto-adjusting time step scheme.