Author(s)

Hisashi Kihara, Naoya Hirata, Ken-ichi Abe

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.

The numerical simulation of flow field around Hayabusa capsule loaded with light-weight ablator thermal response coupled with pyrolysis gas flow inside the ablator was carried out. In addition, the radiation from high temperature gas around the capsule was coupled with flow field. Hayabusa capsule reentered the atmosphere about 12 km/sec in velocity and Mach number about 30. During such an atmospheric entry, space vehicle is exposed to very savior aerodynamic heating due to convection and radiation. In this study, Hayabusa capsule was treated as a typical model of the atmospheric entry spacecraft. The light-weight ablator had porous structure, and permeability was an important parameter to analyze flow inside ablator. In this study, permeability was a variable parameter dependent on density of ablator. It is found that the effect of permeability of light-weight ablator was important with this analysis.

Light-Weight Ablator; Coupling Calculation; Pyrolysis Gas Flow; Hayabusa Capsule

H. Kihara, N. Hirata and K. Abe, "A Study of Thermal Response and Flow Field Coupling Simulation around Hayabusa Capsule Loaded with Light-Weight Ablator," Open Journal of Fluid Dynamics, Vol. 3 No. 2A, 2013, pp. 100-107. doi: 10.4236/ojfd.2013.32A016.