An integrated algorithm for hypersonic fluid–thermal–structural analysis of aerodynamically heated cylindrical leading edge

Abstract

The accurate and efficient prediction of the fluid–thermal–structural performance of thermal protection systems on hypersonic vehicles to protect against severe aerodynamic heating is attracting increasing worldwide attention. In this paper, a new integrated fluid-structural-thermal investigation based on the finite volume method is proposed to study the thermal behavior of aerodynamically heated cylinder leading edges in hypersonic flows. A unified integral equation system is developed based on the governing equations for the physical processes of aerodynamic heating and structural heat transfer, which is resolved by using an up-wind finite volume method and a new two-thermal-resistance model in one integrated, vectorized computer program. To demonstrate its capability and reliability, applications for steady/unsteady fluid–thermal–structural analysis are demonstrated on aerodynamically heated cylinder leading edges at Ma 6.47. The results show that the steady maximum temperature of the cylinder can reach approximately 648 K at the stagnation point, and the unsteady results are in good agreement with the experimental data and related references. Compared with the partitioned approach, the integrated method shows better computational stability with relatively small sensitivity to mesh scale and time step, reducing the computation time for the same unsteady case by approximately 50%. The present study indicates that the integrated approach has potential for significant improvements and efficiency in predicting long-endurance fluid-structural-thermal problems of hypersonic vehicles.