Advanced Radiation Calculations of Hypersonic Reentry Flows Using Efficient Databasing Schemes

Abstract

Efficient schemes for databasing emission and absorption coefficients are developed to model radiation from hypersonic nonequilibrium flows. For bound-bound transitions, spectral information including the line-center wavelength and emission and absorption coefficients is stored for typical air plasma species. Since the flow is nonequilibrium, a rate equation approach including both collisional and radiatively induced transitions is used to calculate the electronic state populations, assuming quasi steady state. The general Voigt line-shape function is assumed for modeling the line-broadening. The accuracy and efficiency of the databasing scheme was examined by comparing results of the databasing scheme with those of NEQAIR for the Stardust flowfield. An accuracy of approximately 1 % was achieved with an efficiency about three times faster than the NEQAIR code.