Experimental and numerical study of the laminar separation in hypersonic flow

This article is devoted to an experimental and numerical study of shock wave/boundary layer interaction in hypersonic laminar flow (M = 10). The experiment was performed in the ONERA R5Ch wind tunnel on a hollow cylinder hare. The flow stream delivered by the R5Ch wind tunnel produces physical conditions which justify both the theoretical approach using classical Navier-Stokes equations and the approach by Direct Simulation Monte-Carlo. So the aim of this study is to improve the capacity of Navier-Stokes and DSMC codes to predict high Mach number interactions. Pressure and heat flux have been measured at the wall and compared with the results obtained with Navier-Stokes and DSMC codes. Two different meshes have been considered with the three Navier-Stokes codes used. The conclusion is that the codes can give a good evaluation of the physical quantities at the wall. (C) Elsevier, Paris.