Influence of geometrical parameters of reentry capsules on flow characteristics at Mach 6

The objective of this paper is to compute entire flow field over Apollo-II, Aerospace Reentry Demonstrator (ARD), Orbital Experiment (OREX) with sharp shoulder and rounded shape shoulder and Space Recovery Experiment (SRE) at different flare-cone half-angle of 20o and 35o. This paper addresses numerical solutions of the compressible three-dimensional Euler equations on hexahedral meshes for a freestream Mach 6 and at an angle of incidence 5o. Furthermore, spatial discretization is accomplished by a cell centred finite volume formulation solution and advanced in time by an explicit multi-stage Runge-Kutta method. The flow field characteristics, distribution of surface pressure coefficient and Mach number on fore-body and aft-body are presented as a function of the geometrical parameters of many reentry capsules. The surface pressure variation is numerically integrated to obtain the aerodynamic drag and compared well with impact theory. The present numerical study has observed the significant dependence of the blunt body and the aft-body geometry of the vehicle and can be used to study atmospheric conditions during re-entry trajectory. The numerical analysis reveals the significant influence of capsule geometry on the flow characteristics of the mechanism of upstream and structure of the flow near the wake region and aerodynamic drag coefficient.