Insights into flow and heat transfer aspects of hypersonic rarefied flow over a blunt body with aerospike using direct simulation Monte-Carlo approach

Hypersonic aero-thermodynamic study of a blunt body with different aerospike configurations is carried out in the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo framework. Influence of aerospike geometry variation on the surface properties such as drag coefficient and convective heat transfer rate are analyzed for a freestream Mach number of 5.75 at 70 km altitude. Numerical investigations are done by varying the diameter of an aerodisk/front body and aerospike length. The simulation results show that an aerodisk of appropriate length and diameter reduces drag coefficient significantly with a moderate value of heat flux. The aerospike length significantly changes the flow behavior and results in some interesting flow features that alter drag and heat flux variation on the surface.