Modeling of near-continuum laminar boundary layer shocks using DSMC

The hypersonic flow of nitrogen gas over a double wedge was simulated by the DSMC method using two-dimensional and three-dimensional geometries. The numerical results were compared with experiments conducted in the HET facility for a high-enthalpy pure nitrogen flow corresponding to a free stream Mach number of approximately seven. Since the conditions for the double wedge case are near-continuum and surface heat flux and size of the separation are sensitive to DSMC numerical parameters, special attention was paid to the convergence of these parameters for both geometries. At the beginning of the simulation, the separation zone was predicted to be small and the heat flux values for the 2-D model were comparable to the experimental data. However, for increasing time, it was observed that the heat flux values and shock profile strongly deviated from the experiment. Investigation of a three-dimensional model showed that the flow is truly three-dimensional and the side edge pressure relief provides good agreement between simulations and the experiment.