Shock/shock interaction in ARC-heated nonequilibrium nitrogen flow

When a re-entry vehicle enters the atmosphere, the temperature of the air flow around the body becomes very high, where thermal and chemical nonequilibrium occurs. Since the heat flux is increased by shock/shock interaction, considerable care has to be given to treat a multiple-body. In this study, both experiment using and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) regarding shock/shock interaction for a non-equilibrium nitrogen flow were conducted. In the experiment, two copper pipes were used to make a shock/shock interaction flow, and in the CFD, Park's two-temperature model was used to model nonequilibrium flow. In this study, shock/shock interaction in non-equilibrium nitrogen gas flow was investigated. The interaction was well captured by the arc-heated wind tunnel. CFD also provided similar results to the experiment.