Aerodynamic and thermal environment of a gap under hypersonic flight

Accurate prediction of aerodynamic and thermal environment around a gap has a significant effect on the development of spacecraft. The implicit finite volume schemes are derived and programmed from Navier-Stokes equations. Taking the gap between thermal insulation tiles as an example, a numerical simulation is performed by the finite volume method to obtain the flow characteristic in a gap and then to analyze the heat transfer mechanism. The numerical results are consistent with the experimental ones, which prove the precision of the method used in this paper. Furthermore, the numerical results reveal that the heat convection plays a leading role in heat transfer around a gap.