Modeling Particle-Laden Compressible Flows with an Application to Plume-Surface Interactions

Abstract

During planetary descent, rocket plumes fluidize and eject surface granular matter. Consequently, ejected matter has been shown to obscure the landing site and even collide with the lander, causing serious damage. Given the high risk and cost of space exploration, the challenges associated with plume-surface interactions (PSI) are capable of jeopardizing future missions. The erosion, fluidization, and ejecta of granular matter during PSI occurs under transonic/supersonic, high Reynolds number conditions. These flow conditions pose significant challenges in both experimental and numerical analyses. To date, accurate and predictive physics-based models of PSI at relevant landing conditions do not exist.

The objective of this project is to develop high-fidelity simulation capabilities to model compressible gas-particle flows at conditions relevant to PSI. To start, a rigorous derivation of the volume-filtered (locally averaged) compressible Navier--Stokes equations is presented for the first time. This derivation reveals many unclosed terms, for which models are either non-existent or not valid under the regimes of interest. To this end, key terms including pseudo-turbulent kinetic energy and pseudo-turbulent Reynolds stresses, are isolated and modeled via a transport equation in a new high-order finite difference Eulerian-Lagrangian framework. A new immersed boundary method is introduced to generate highly resolved, multi-particle simulations for model closure development. Using the proposed immersed boundary method and the Eulerian--Lagrangian framework, high-fidelity PSI simulations are performed. Single-phase jet impingement on flat surfaces is first shown for validation of the flow conditions. The work is then extended to PSI over a granular bed. For this case, it is shown that that ejected particles can exceed sonic speeds at high particle Reynolds numbers while the majority of the granular bed experiences subsonic particle Mach numbers. In addition, granular temperature is found to be most prevalent in region of high shear during crater formation.

The uniqueness of this work lies in the combination of first principles physics and numerics to generate a modeling framework to improve predictions of plume-surface interactions for future missions involving entry, descent, and landing on planetary and satellite bodies.