Hypersonic Flows for Reentry Problems

One of the most challenging problems of modern engineering is undoubtedly the prediction of hypersonic flows around space vehicles in reentry conditions. Indeed, the difficulties are numerous: first of all, these flows are very difficult to model, since very complex physical and chemical phenomena take place during the reentry phase; secondly, temperature, velocity and enthalpy are very high and densities are very low, making the reentry process very difficult to reproduce in ground-based experiments. The past three decades have seen important efforts in computational fluid dynam­ ics relying on the use of supercomputers to simulate these very complicated flows. The numerical simulation based on imperfect models and methods which were es­ sentially designed for transonic and supersonic flows has still a long way to go in order to be able to predict these hypersonic reentry flows very accurately. This situation has motivated very strong international cooperative efforts with, as the most visible consequences, the EuropelUnited States Short Courses on Hy­ personics, which were held in Paris, in 1987 [1,2], Colorado Springs in 1989 [3], and Aachen in 1990 [3]. The workshop on Hypersonics whose results are presented and analysed in these volumes is also a direct consequence of this international cooperation. This scien­ tific event was an initiative of P. Perrier, Head of the Theoretical Aerodynamics Department of DASSAULT AVIATION, who played a key role in the identification of the critical problems and the realisation of experiments, within the Hermes R&D program framework.