A computational analysis of ground test studies of the HIFiRE-1 transition experiment

Comparisons to measurements made in the CUBRC LENS-I facility on a full-scale HIFiRE-1 vehicle at duplicated flight conditions have been made with the computational fluid dynamics code DPLR and the parabolized stability code STABL. These comparisons include laminar heating, transition onset, turbulent heating, and turbulent shock-induced separation covering all major aspects of the ground test experiment. These results and comparisons serve as a design package for the future flight article. It has been found that several issues remain with regards to state-of-the-art RANS modeling, both on the attached forebody flow and in the interaction region. On the attached forebody, heating predictions compared to ground test measurements have shown that the turbulence models can over-predict the measurements by up to 30% and initial investigations suggest that this discrepancy may be linked to total to wall temperature ratio. In the interaction region, the comparison with experiment has shown the importance of proper stress-limiting of the Reynolds stress tensor to obtain good agreement.