Conceptual Analysis of Electron Transpiration Cooling for the Leading Edges of Hypersonic Vehicles

Abstract

Recent progress is presented in an ongoing effort to perform a conceptual analysis of possible electron transpiration cooling using thermo-electric materials at the leading edges of hypersonic vehicles.The implementation of a new boundary condition in the CFD code LeMANS to model the thermionic emission of electrons from the leading edges of hypersonic vehicles is described.A parametric study is performed to understand the effects of the material work function, the freestream velocity, and the leading edge geometry on this cooling effect.The numerical results reveal that lower material work functions, higher freestream velocities, and smaller leading edges can increase the cooling effect due to larger emission current densities.The numerical results also show that the electric field produced by the electron emission may not have a significant effect on the predicted properties.Future work recommendations are provided that may improve the physical accuracy of the modeling capabilities used in this study.