VISCOUS NONEQUILIBRIUM BLUNT BODY FLOWS

A method is developed which effectively reduces the partial differential equations governing the continuum viscous thin shock layer region (including chemical nonequilibrium effects) about a sphere to a set of total differential equations along radial lines across the shock layer. It is applied to regions downstream of the stagnation point. A systematic procedure is presented to obtain higher approximations in order that accuracy and consistency of the approximations made may be ascertained. Depending upon the degree of the approximation the flow field may be determined along either one or more lines with coupling between the lines. Sample calculations for frozen, equilibrium and nonequilibrium cases are included and comparison made with the stagnation point work of Cheng, Chung, Ho and Probstein and experiments of Ferri et al. Heat transfer and shear parameters are in reasonable agreement. Comparison of shock shapes and downstream variation of other flow quantities were not possible since most of the existing works are valid only near the stagnation point. (Author)