Electromagnetic control of a weakly ionized supersonic rarefied argon flow past a magnetized blunt body is simulated using the direct simulation Monte Carlo method with Ohm's law. According to the corresponding experiment using an arcjet wind tunnel, the Knudsen and Mach numbers of the flow are, respectively, 0.05 and 1.7, and a dipolar magnetic field for which the maximum value is about 0.4 T is imposed around the body. Although the Hall and ion slip effects are estimated to be significant in the flow, the present computations ignore these effects, for simplicity. The result is compared not only with the experimental result but also with the simulated result using Navier-Stokes computation. The kinetic (direct simulation Monte Carlo) and continuum (Navier-Stokes) simulations produced almost identical translational temperature distributions with application and with no application of a magnetic field. Results show that the continuum approximation is acceptable to predict the flow structure. Both simulations roughly reproduced the measured shock layer enlargement resulting from the Lorentz force against the flow direction and predicted the resulting reduction of the net heat load on the body. In addition, the direct simulation Monte Carlo correctly predicted the drag measured in the case of the not-applied field and verified the electromagnetic drag increase measured qualitatively in the case of the applied field; the electromagnetic effect increases the total drag, because the reaction of the generated Lorentz force prominently exceeds the slight decrease of aerodynamic drag caused by the shock layer enlargement.
A preliminary feasibility study of a laser ramjet SSTO has been conducted using engine cycle analysis. Although a large amount of laser energy is lost due to chemically frozen flow at high altitudes, the laser ramjet SSTO was found to be feasible with 100 MW laser power for 100 kg vehicle mass and 1 m 2 vehicle cross-section area. Obtained momentum coupling coefficient, C m , was validated by means of CFD. As a result, the engine cycle analysis was underestimating C m. This would be because of the strong unsteady energy input in the actual heating process and the spatially localized pressure on the afterbody.
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