Numerical Study of Hypersonic Near-Continuum Flow by Improved Slip Boundary Condition

Appropriate numerical models and boundary conditions are required to accurately model hypersonic flows involving local nonequilibrium effects, which can be induced by the wall effect and large gradients of flow properties in the flowfield. Considering the strong density gradient near the wall for hypersonic flows, an improved Gökçen slip model is proposed in this paper by introducing a scaled mean free path to the conventional Gökçen’s model. Hypersonic argon flows over a circular cylinder and a blunt plate in the near-continuum regime are simulated by the proposed slip model with the conventional Navier–Stokes–Fourier equations and an extended continuum model, which was recently developed to model the shear nonequilibrium effect in high-speed flows. The accuracy of the new boundary model is evaluated by comparing the results with the direct simulation Monte Carlo method. The effects of Knudsen number, Mach number, and wall temperature on the nonequilibrium degree and aerodynamic predictions are also investigated. The numerical results show that the improved model can well predict the surface friction and heat transfer coefficients, exhibiting much better performance than the existing continuum models.