Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica

Pós-graduação

TE-208

Project 01

Professor:
Student:
Cayo Francisco e Rodrigo
Fortunato Martins Neto
Palharini

October 6, 2021
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1 Introduction
This work consists in a partial activity of the Simulação Direta de Escoa-
mento Rarefeito (TE-208) discipline of the post-graduate program of ITA1 .
The purpose is the simulation of two rarefied flowfiled problems proposed
by [2], the supersonic corner and the supersonic leading-edge problems. It
is discussed the use of the main flowfiled parameters applied in the problems, the
mesh generation and the results provided. The simulations are performed with the
dsmcFoamPlus code, a solver based in the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC)
method for resolution of rarefied problems. It is intended to show through the
simulations that the code is a good tool in application of solving rarefied flow.

2 Supersonic Corner
As described by [2] the supersonic corner consists in a three-dimensional
problem of two flat plates that are perpendicular to one another and parallel to the
stream. The stream is parallel to x-axis and uses argon gas at a temperature of
300K and a number density of 1020 m−3 at a Mach number of 6. Diffuse reflection
is assumed and the surfaces are at a uniform temperature of 1000K. The freestream
mean free path is λ∞ = 0.0129. The main properties and parameters of simulation
are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Supersonic corner simulation main properties and parameters.

Property/Parameter Value Unity
T∞ 300 K
Twall 1000 K
20
n∞ 1.00×10 m3
V∞ 1936 m/s
p∞ 0.41 Pa
Kn 0.0043 -
λ∞ 0.0129 m
∆t 4.67×10−7 s
nEP 6.25×1011 -

Therefore there is a supersonic flow that intercepts a two flat plate joint
and creates a gradient of properties due the physical interference provided by the
corner.
1
Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA).

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The flow is assumed symmetrical about a plane2 that includes the x-axis
and bisects the angle between the plates, that is the white region shown in Figure
1. At the same figure the red one region is considered as boundary walls.

Figure 1: Corner problem.

The cell grid assumed upstream is 10×36×36. And the cell grid assumed
in the corner region is 50×36×36. The lenght of cells calculated was 0.0043m,
but instead was used 0.005m. These are the default configurations of the tutorial
available in OpenFoam, which was performed in this simulation. Figure 2 show the
mesh used for supersonic corner problem.
2
Plane (X,Y,Z).

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Figure 2: Mesh for supersonic corner problem.

0.3
0.25 0.15 Y Axis
X Axis
0.2 0.1
0.15 0.05
0.1
0
0.05
0
0.18

0.15
0.16

0.14

0.12 0.1
Z Axis
0.1
Z Axis
0.08
0.05
0.06

0.04

0
0.02 0.3

0.25
0
0.2
0.15
0.15
0.1 X Axis
Y Axis 0.1

0.05
0.05

0 0

3 Supersonic Leading-Edge
The leading-edge or horizontal flat plate problem relates to the two di-
mensional flow past a semi-infinite thin flat plate that is aligned with the stream.
The flow is constituted of nitrogen gas at a Mach number of four past a flat plate
with a length of approximately 70 times the mean free path in the indisturbed gas.
The temperature of the plate is 1.6 times the indisturbed gas temperature. The
stream is in the positive x-direction and the plate lies along the lower y-boundary.
The leading-edge is 5.4 mean free paths from the upstream boundary and the plate
extends to the downstream boundary. Freestream conditions exist at the inlet, out-
let and upper boundaries while the short length upstream the plate was considered
as symmetric. Empty condition was considered in both sides to simulate a two-
dimensional problem. The horizontal plate itself was considered to be a diffusive
surface. Figure 3 shows some boundary conditions applied in the problem. The red
color shows the empty boundaries, the plate is the green region and the upstream
region is shown as grey.

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Figure 3: Horizontal plate boundary conditions.

For this problem a flowfield temperature of T∞ = 300K was applied, leading

to a plate temperature of Tplate = 480K. As the problem not offers the mean free
path or/and the characteristic lenght L, it was considered a L = 1.
As some of the results shown by [2] regards to number density, it was
considered the formulation proposed by [1] for an estimation of the density and
after the number density itself,

16µ

 
√ 1
5 2πRT
ρ= , (1)
λ
where

5µ

√
16
πRT
µ= (2)
σ
where m3 is the molecular mass, R is the gas constant, σ = πd2 is the cross section of
molecule with a diamteter d and µ is the Champman-Enskog coefficient of viscosity
in a hard sphere4 gas at temperature T .
3
Nitrogen mass 46.5 × 10−27 kg.
4
It was used the HS model as an estimation.

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This way it is possible to estimate the number density,

ρ
n= . (3)
m
Table 2 summarizes the main properties and parameters applied in the
horizontal plate simulation.

Table 2: Horizontal plate simulation main properties and parameters.

Property/Parameter Value Unity
T∞ 300 K
Tplate 480 K
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n∞ 9.05×10 m3
V∞ 1412 m/s
p∞ 0.037 Pa
Kn 0.0143 -
λ∞ 0.0143 m
∆t 5.19×10−7 s
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nEP 9.79×10 -

The mesh for the supersonic leading-edge problem is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Mesh for supersonic leading-edge problem.

X Axis
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

0.7 0.7

0.65 0.65

0.6 0.6

0.55 0.55

0.5 0.5

0.45 0.45

0.4 0.4

Z Axis Z Axis
0.35 0.35

0.3 0.3

0.25 0.25

0.2 0.2

0.15 0.15

0.1 0.1

0.05 0.05

0 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
X Axis

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In the simulation was used an ∆t = 5×10−7 . By its turn an ∆x = 0.0048m

was calculated, and wad used the follow values for domain 0.0801×0.0048×0.7150
(m) upstream; and 1.0010×0.0048×0.7150 (m) downstream (plate region). Note
that in the y-axis was considered only one cell to provide a two-dimensional simu-
lation. This way the cell grid upstream was defined as 17×1×150; and downstream
210×1×150.

4 Results
In this section a comparison between the results obtained by [2] and the
ones provided by the simulations.

4.1 Supersonic Corner

Some of the results shown by [2] are the pressure coefficient Cp and the
surface heat transfer coefficient Ch . Both of them are shown through the isolines
along the corner. The results obtained by Bird are shown in Figure 5 and 7.
In order to obtain the coefficients, these can be achieved by the use of the
two follow equations,

p − p∞
Cp = 1 2
, (4)
2
ρ∞ v∞

q
Ch = 1 . (5)
ρ v3
2 ∞ ∞

For freestream density ρ∞ , it was used the relation shown in Equation 35 .

As pressure p as the surface heat transfer q, shown by Equations 4 and 5
was obtained from the simulation results. The coefficients Cp and Ch were calculated
from the calculator tool and the coefficients isolines, by its turn were calculated by
the contour tool, both available in ParaView.
5
Argon mass 6.63 × 10−26 kg.

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Figure 5: Cp calculated by [2].

The simulations were perfomed in a workstation of 16 cores in IAE6 facili-

ties. The results provided in Figure 6 and 8 were achieved with approximately 300
thousand iterations.
Figure 6 shows the contour of pressure coefficient along the corner. The
pressure coefficient along the junction between the plates has a maximum at about
x/l = 1/3. The results are similar with the reference ones.
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Instituto de Aeronáutica e Espaço (IAE).

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Figure 6: Cp calculated in simulation.

Cp
2.5e-01

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05
2.5e-02

Figure 7: Ch calculated by [2].

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The heat transfer coefficient results are shown in Figure 8. As seen below
the Ch increases towards the junction between the plates of the corner, but there
is a significant reduction very close the junction. On the other hand the maximum
heat transfer occurs in two circles at about x/l = 1/4 and close (but not very) the
junction. A great reduction of heat transfer occurs as the plate length gets closer
the trailing edge. For this property the results are also similar with the reference
ones.

Figure 8: Ch calculated in simulation.

Ch
7.3e-02

0.06

0.05

0.04

0.03

0.02

1.1e-02

4.2 Supersonic Leading-Edge

The Bird’s contour of number density and temperature ratios, as Mach
number are shown in Figures 9, 11 and 13. The results obtained through the sim-
ulations are shown in Figures 10, 12 and 14. The results were achived after about
730 thousand iterations which took about two days performed through the Cluster
Euler7 with 400 cores.

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Supercomputer of Universidade de São Paulo (USP).

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The results for the number density contour matched with the Bird ones. It
is possible to realize that the number density increases across the shock, but has a
decrease to a value less than the stream density near the plate surface.

Figure 9: n/n∞ calculated by [2].

Figure 10: n/n∞ calculated in the simulation.

n/n_inf
1.6e+00

1.4

1.2

0.8

5.2e-01

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By its turn the temperature contour shows that the upstream temperature
rise is approximately equal to that rise in the extremity of the oblique shock. On the
other hand there’s a substantial increase of temperature as it approches the plate.

Figure 11: T /T∞ calculated by [2].

Figure 12: T /T∞ calculated in the simulation.

T/T_inf
2.4e+00

2.2

1.8

1.6

1.4

1.2

1.0e+00

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The Mach number contour shows a reduction of the velocity magnitude as

the flow approaches the plate. Very near the plate the flowfield regime is subsonic.

Figure 13: Mach number calculated by [2].

Figure 14: Mach number calculated in the simulation.

Mach
3.9e+00
3.5

2.5

1.5

5.0e-01

All results for the supersonic leading-edge problem matches the results
compared to the Bird ones.

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5 Conclusion
The results obtained through the simulations performed with the dsmc-
FoamPlus code provided results that matches with the two well valued problems
proposed initially by [2]. The contours shown to the number density and tempera-
ture ratio, as for the Mach number, demonstrates that this dsmc code can be used
for the solution of rarefied problems.

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References
[1] G. A. Bird - “Definition of mean free path for real gases”. 1983.

[2] G. A. Bird - “Molecular Gas Dynamics and the Direct Simulation of

Gas Flows”. 1994.

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