High Fidelity Simulation of Threat Ballistic Missile Plume Signature & Scramjet Propulsion Flow Fields

Abstract

High fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions of threat ballistic missile (TBM) plume signatures are of very high importance since they have a great potential to enhance defensive capabilities in a number of important areas related to detection and identification of a threat missile during boost phase, e.g. early warning launch detection, post launch warning detection, missile typing & tracking algorithms, discrimination and background clutter discrimination. Such high fidelity CFD simulations are proving to be equally critical for the design and analysis of offensive, hypersonic scramjet-powered interceptors designed to neutralize these TBM threats. Crucial towards the maturation of such simulation capabilities has been the development of robust computational algorithms for parallel platforms, physical modeling advances that accurately represent high-speed combustion phenomenology as related to rocket plume afterburning and scramjet propulsion, as well as ready availability of a steady succession of increasingly more capable high-performance parallel computer architectures. Particularly significant has been the emergence of very high-resolution Large Eddy Simulation (LES) as a computational laboratory, thereby enabling examination of fundamental turbulence-chemistry interactions underlying high-speed combustion in flight-representative environments that cannot be replicated in ground-test facilities and are very hard to quantify in tests with the best of modern non-intrusive diagnostics. The insight obtained from these turbulence simulations is now supporting the development of more engineering-oriented steady-state Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations with which the entire plume or propulsive flowpath of a scramjet can be analyzed to support design & testing activities. While these developments have been extremely noteworthy in advancing the state-of-the-art, the fidelity of engineering simulations is limited by computational bottlenecks and physics modeling while the high cost of meaningful tests have led to greater reliance on modeling & simulation (M&S). This talk will provide an overview of the present state-of-the-art in high performance computing as related to missile plume & scramjet analysis, challenges that remain to be overcome in order to incorporate higher realism into simulations and increase their fidelity to more closely support design of operational systems.