Direct Numerical Simulation Database for Supersonic and Hypersonic Turbulent Boundary Layers

TLDR

The DNS conditions emulate operational environments of the Purdue Mach 6 quiet tunnel, Sandia’s Mach 8 hypersonic wind tunnel, and AEDC’s Mach 14 hypervelocity tunnel. To provide a DNS database of high‑speed zero‑pressure‑gradient turbulent boundary layers over a flat plate across Mach 2.5–14 and wall‑to‑recovery temperature 0.18–1.0. The database is produced by spatially resolving zero‑pressure‑gradient turbulent boundary layers over a flat plate and is hosted online, allowing users to assess compressibility transformations and query Reynolds stresses and budgets. Analysis of thermodynamic fluctuations and Reynolds stress budgets reveals how direct compressibility influences turbulent boundary layer behavior.

Abstract

This paper presents a direct numerical simulation database of high-speed zero-pressure-gradient turbulent boundary layers developing spatially over a flat plate with nominal freestream Mach number ranging from 2.5 to 14 and wall-to-recovery temperature ranging from 0.18 to 1.0. The flow conditions of the DNS are representative of the operational conditions of the Purdue Mach 6 quiet tunnel, the Sandia Hypersonic Wind Tunnel at Mach 8, and the AEDC Hypervelocity Tunnel No. 9 at Mach 14. The DNS database is used to gauge the performance of compressibility transformations, including the classical Morkovin's scaling and strong Reynolds analogy as well as the newly proposed mean velocity and temperature scalings that explicitly account for wall heat flux. Several insights into the effect of direct compressibility are gained by inspecting the thermodynamic fluctuations and the Reynolds stress budget terms. Precomputed flow statistics, including Reynolds stresses and their budgets, will be available at the website of the NASA Langley Turbulence Modeling Resource, allowing other investigators to query any property of interest.