Output-based mesh adaptation for high-speed flows

High-speed Computational Fluid Dynamics calculations often rely on structured meshes in order to facilitate aligning the mesh with shocks either manually or via some semi-automated process. The shock alignment of the mesh is often considered critical in order to obtain sufficiently accurate outputs such as integrated surface heat transfer. However, creating shock-aligned structured meshes with complex geometries and/or multiple interacting shocks is challenging, and may not even be feasible for some configurations. Unstructured meshes offer greater flexibility focusing mesh resolution to capture complex geometry and flow features. This work demonstrates that integrated pressure drag computed using automated output-based adapted unstructured meshes can achieve comparable accuracy to special purpose bow shock-aligned structured meshes for a canonical high-speed test case. •Output-based mesh adaption used to minimize pressure-drag error at hypersonic speeds•Meshes refine around shock, but coarsen outside surface-quantity domain of dependence•Comparisons with heuristic shock fitting highlight importance of output functionals