Degree Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
1990
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Mechanical Engineering
First Advisor
Richard H. Pletcher
Abstract
Numerical simulations using the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations and chimera (overset) grid approach were carried out for flows around the integrated space shuttle vehicle over a range of Mach numbers. Body-conforming grids were used for all the component grids. Testcases include a three-component overset grid--the external tank (ET), the solid rocket booster (SRB) and the orbiter (ORB), and a five-component overset grid--the ET, SRB, ORB, forward and aft attach hardware, configurations. The results were compared with the wind tunnel and flight data;In addition, a Poisson solution procedure (a special case of the vorticity-velocity formulation) using primitive variables was developed to solve three-dimensional, irrotational, inviscid flows for single as well as overset grids. The solutions were validated by comparisons with other analytical or numerical solutions, and/or experimental results for various geometries. The Poisson solution was also used as an initial guess for the thin-layer Navier-Stokes solution procedure to improve the efficiency of the numerical flow simulations. It was found that this approach resulted in roughly a 30% CPU time savings as compared with the procedure solving the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations from a uniform free stream flowfield.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31274/rtd-180813-9164
Publisher
Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/
Copyright Owner
Ing-Tsau Chiu
Copyright Date
1990
Language
en
Proquest ID
AAI9101340
File Format
application/pdf
File Size
154 pages
Recommended Citation
Chiu, Ing-Tsau, "On computations of the integrated space shuttle flowfield using overset grids " (1990). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 9429.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/9429