Imposition of an ablative boundary condition in a high-order immersed interface framework, in the context of space re-entry by Julien KLAUNER

During its re-entry into the atmosphere, the capsule withstands a strong shock due to its hypersonic velocity. This shock generates, near the Thermal Protection System (TPS), a lower velocity but extremely hot and reactive flow. As shown by previous space missions, there are still many uncertainties in the design of heat shields. Since real tests are expensive and experimental tests require complex facilities, a great deal of effort is devoted to numerical simulations. Several methods exist to simulate and account for the interaction between gas and surface, but this research focuses on the imposition of an ablative boundary condition—that is, imposing mass and heat transfer between the flow and the surface of the capsule—in a flow solver, robustly by taking advantage of the implicit solver. Indeed, solving problems involving multiple species and chemical reactions can be very stiff. Note that we are using the Discontinuous Galerkin method solver, called Argo (from Cenaero), and aim to leverage high-order methods. Furthermore, to track the ablation, the boundary condition will be imposed on an immersed interface, and once the correct velocity has been set, it should allow us to track the modification of the shape of the TPS