High Speed Flow Chemistry Modelling

An open source implementation of chemistry modelling for the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method has been constructed. An approach known as the quantum kinetic (Q-K) method has been adopted to describe chemical reactions in a 5-species air model using DSMC procedures based on microscopic gas information. The Q-K technique has been implemented within the framework of the dsmcFoam code, a derivative of the open source CFD code OpenFOAM. Our results for vibrational relaxation, dissociation and exchange reaction rates for an adiabatic bath demonstrate the success of the Q-K model implementation in dsmcFoam when compared with analytical solutions for both inert and reacting conditions. A comparison has also made between the Q-K and total collision energy (TCE) chemistry approaches for a hypersonic flow benchmark case. Currently we work on model extension to cover ionization and plasma gases.

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Figure 1. Contours of Nitric Oxide for hypersonic flow over a cylinder, upper half (TCE), lower half (QK).