New principle for aerodynamic heating

Abstract

Fluid flows that we encounter in nature are mostly turbulent. To date, the physics of turbulence has not been clear and is still considered as ‘the last unsolved problem in classical physics’. Its complex dynamical process reflects the strong nonlinearity of the Navier–Stokes equation, which is a millennium math problem.The modeling and control of developed turbulence and the onset of turbulence, i.e. transition, are still bottlenecks in engineering applications such as aeronautics, astronautics and navigation. Recently, hypersonic boundary-layer transition has become a strategic focus because of its severe impact on the aerodynamic force and heating of a highspeed vehicle. Compared to incompressible flows, hypersonic transition and its effect on aerodynamic heating are less understood owing to additional complexities such as second- and higher-order instability modes and non-linear coupling of different processes.