A novel combination of mathematical modelling approaches for simulating nearly hypersonic, viscous, reacting magnetogasdynamic flows

This work focuses on the mathematical combination of magnetogasdynamics (MGD) and the Dunn and Kang chemical kinetic model with a multi-component Harten–Lax–van Leer Contact (HLLC) local Riemann solver using high-order interpolation schemes. Due to the nature of nearly hypersonic, unsteady, viscous, reacting MGD flows, the gas dissociates which is taken into account with 11 species and 26 chemical reactions along with the temperature dependent transport properties through the Wilke model. In the present work, the electromagnetic effects are considered by solving a Poisson equation simultaneously with the chemical reaction equations. The non-linear convective terms are treated numerically with third-, fifth- and seventh-order Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO) interpolation schemes along with second-, fourth- and sixth-order central finite difference schemes for the viscous terms. The combination of these numerical and physical models are analysed for stability and validated for benchmark problems such as a) Hartmann flow as MGD validation test case and b) the shock-tube problem for testing the chemical reaction model in which case the reaction rate controlling temperature suggested by Park has also been taken into account. Furthermore, a complex physical problem of an external aerodynamic flow over the cube for the Mach number varying from 1.25 to 3 have also been investigated, because a limited number of studies is available for understanding the flow behaviour of sharp cornered blunt bodies such as cubes. The knowledge of shock structures of these objects has become imperative to predict the atmospheric re-entry trajectories of de-orbiting CubeSats, space debris or fragments of launch vehicles. The main physical finding is that the shock structures are observed to be much more resolved compared to previous works, especially in the wake region. The knowledge gap is bridged by detailing the shock structures and showing the dependence of the shock standoff distance on total enthalpy of the flow.