Comparison of gas-dynamic models for hypersonic flow past bodies (Q1315569)

Various gas-dynamic models for describing chemically non-equilibrium flows are compared using the example of the steady flow past the blunt nose of the ``Buran'' and ``Space Shuttle'' vehicles during their descent from orbit. Models of locally self-similar approximations of the Navier- Stokes equations, of a chemically equilibrium and non-equilibrium complete viscous shock layer and a model of a thin viscous shock layer are considered. In all the models the occurrence of physicochemical processes was taken into account in the same way using fixed values of the constants for the gas-phase chemical reactions. Good agreement between the results of calculations of the heat flux at the critical point is found.