Influence of precursor heating on viscous flow around a Jovian entry body

Abstract

The influence of changes in precursor region flow properties (resulting from the absorption of radiation from the shock layer) on the entire shock layer flow phenomena was investigated. The axially symmetric case is considered for both the preheating zone (precursor region) and shock layer. The flow in the shock layer is assumed to be viscous with chemical equilibrium but radiative nonequilibrium. Realistic thermophysical and spectral models are employed, and results are obtained by implicit finite difference and iterative procedures. The results indicate that precursor heating increases the radiative heating of the body by a maximum of 7.5 percent for 116 km entry conditions