Monal Patel and Salvador Navarro-Martinez
DOI Number XXX-YYY-ZZZ
Conference Number HiSST-2022-364
Adaptive mesh refinement and immersed boundary method are used to computationally study hypersonic ablation patterns. Ablation timescales are orders of magnitudes larger than flow time scales,
making computational modelling of ablation problems only feasible if ablation is artificially sped-up.
First, a subliming sphere at Mach 4 is investigated. It is found, that if the speed-up factor is small
enough then the shape change due to ablation is independent of the speed-up factor. Then, a novel
test case with a backward facing step with binary species ablating boundary under transitional flow
conditions is created and investigated. Roughness is found to develop due to differential ablation and
causes uneven surface recession, this promotes the generation of vorticity in the boundary layer. Crosshatching ablation patterns are not observed in the current simulations, however, long-time simulations
of the current case may lead to such patterns.