Simulation of the Impact of the Wakes of an Emergency Rescue Unit’s Nozzles on the Surface of a Manned Spacecraft

The results of the numerical modeling of the impact of the wakes of the nozzles of an emergency rescue rocket unit (ERRU) on the surface of a manned spacecraft are presented. The calculations are performed in the context of the two-stage zonal RANS-LES methodology proposed and validated by the authors earlier. In this methodology, the wall-modeled LES (WMLES) is based on the well-known eddy-resolving approach IDDES. In this paper, this technique is improved by including in the WMLES-subdomain the first row of the ERRU’s nozzles and performing calculations in the entire (360°) azimuthal domain. This makes it possible to increase the accuracy of the calculations due to a more correct description of the wakes of these nozzles and to analyze the flow around the spacecraft at nonzero angles of attack. The effect of the flight’s Mach number on the amplitude-frequency characteristics of the pressure fluctuations on the surface of the spacecraft, including their alteration at the sonic barrier, is analyzed. In addition, at the transonic Mach number value of M ∞ = 0.95, the effects of the angle of attack and the mutual azimuthal position of the nozzles of the first and second rows are studied.