Speaker
Description
Tightly coupled simulations between ablative materials and hypersonic flow solvers are essential for reliable demise-oriented design. The traditional use of B′ tables to couple material response and flow behavior was an effective strategy to address the computational limitations of the 1960s, but it remains limited in both accuracy and flexibility. This work proposes a generic coupling approach that leverages modern computational capabilities to provide a simpler and more accurate alternative. An explicit coupling boundary condition has been implemented in PATO resolving at each material time-step heat and mass transfer and chemistry at the interface—and through for porous materials. As a proof of concept, Mutation++ is used for non-equilibrium surface interactions, coupled with the hypersonic solver Eilmer to resolve the flow. This approach enables the simultaneous consideration of ablation, mass transfer, pyrolysis gas release, and blowing effects, which strongly influence the heat flux and species composition at the fluid–solid interface. Tested on representative hypersonic cases, the methodology represents a step toward a multiphysics framework capable of capturing material degradation, cracking, and fragmentation during atmospheric reentry. PATO is released as open-source software and is designed to be readily coupled with hypersonic flow solvers.