A fully implicit time accurate method for hypersonic combustion: Application to shock-induced combustion instability

A new fully implicit, time accurate algorithm suitable for chemically reacting, viscous flows in the transonic-to-hypersonic regime is described, The method is based on a class of Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) schemes and uses successive Gauss-Seidel relaxation sweeps. The inversion of large matrices is avoided by partitioning the system into reacting and nonreacting parts, but a fully coupled interaction is still maintained. As a result, the matrices that have to be inverted are of the same size as those obtained with the commonly used point implicit methods. In this paper we illustrate applicability of the new algorithm to hypervelocity unsteady combustion applications. We present a series of numerical simulations of the periodic combustion instabilities observed in ballistic-range experiments of blunt projectiles flying at subdetonative speeds through hydrogen-air mixtures. The computed frequencies of oscillation are in excellent agreement with experimental data.