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DSMC SIMULATIONS OF RAREFIED FLOW OVER

A SQUARE CYLINDER
REJI R. V.1 , ABHILASH R.2 and S. ANIL LAL3
1,2,3

Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering Trivandrum,

Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India.
E-mail: 1 reji.tvm@gmail.com,2 abhilashr@cet.ac.in, 3 anillal@cet.ac.in

The aero-thermal analysis of different shaped geometries in rarefied hypersonic flow fields
are important and find applications in the design of devices to measure the hypersonic flow
properties, elements of satellite systems, re-entry conditions etc. In this work, rarefied gas
flow of Argon around a square cylinder is simulated using Direct Simulation Monte Carlo
(DSMC) method. The simulation is carried out for different free-stream Knudsen number
such as 0.002, 0.01, 0.05 & 0.25. The effect of angle of attack of the entry flow is also
analyzed. The results such as variation of pressure, temperature, local Knudsen number and
local Mach number in the flow domain, shock layer - boundary layer interactions and its effects
on rarefaction, drag force, heat and location of the peak heat flux over the surface, velocity slip
and temperature jump over the surface of the square cylinder are presented and discussed in
this work.
Keywords: Rarefied flow; hypersonic flow; DSMC simulation & square cylinder.

Introduction
Characteristics of flow behavior in the rarefied gas regime is very important in the design of
vehicles operating at higher altitudes. Vehicles at high altitudes operate at hypersonic speed
and experiences a variety of complex flow features. The concept of continuum is no longer
valid in rarefied flows. The ratio of mean free path of the gas molecule and characteristic
length is called Knudsen number, is the non-dimensional parameter defining the degree of
rarefaction in a flow. The solution of Navier-Stokes equation becomes invalid for Knudsen
number, Kn > 0.1. Boltzmann equation is the equation that is valid for all flow regimes. But
Boltzmann equation is too difficult to solve and this difficulty has led to the development of a
computationally easy technique called Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) Method [Bird
(1994)]. It is a statistical method which emulate the physical processes modeled by Boltzmann
equation.
DSMC method is a particle based simulation in which a simulated molecule represents a
much larger ensemble of molecules tracked through space and time. The movement of
particle and collision between particles are computationally decoupled. The movement of
each particle is linear in nature as prescribed by its velocity vector and time-step increment.
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The reorientation in the particle trajectory occurs as a result of collision with the wall and the
intermolecular collisions. The particle motion and surface collision are deterministic whereas
intermolecular collisions are probabilistic in nature. The collision rate is set same as that
of kinetic theory of gas and probability of collision between collision pairs is found out by
acceptance-rejection method. The collision is modelled using available phenomenological
models. The macroscopic properties are found out by taking the ensemble average of the
properties of particles.
DSMC Solver - dsmcFoam
OpenFOAM [Jasak et al. (2007)] is an opensource fluid flow solver based on object oriented
C++ modules and includes variety of solvers which are capable of handling most of the physical problems. dsmcFoam [Scanlon T.J. et al. (2010)] (DSMC solver available in OpenFOAM)
has the following capabilities viz. steady and unsteady simulations by proceeding through
small time steps, capability to simulate arbitrary 2D and 3D geometries, ability to define
symmetry plane and cyclic boundaries, arbitrary number of gas species can be included in the
simulation, free-stream flows over the obstacles. The Larsen-Borgnakke model and variable
hard sphere (VHS) model for DSMC collision simulation are available in the module.
Validation case - Hypersonic flow over a wedge
The work presented by Liu et al. (2012) for a hypersonic flow over wedge of angle 40o was
simulated using the dsmcFoam as a validation case. The computational domain and boundary
conditions of the problem for validation case is shown in figure 1. The inlet Mach number
of 10 is simulated with an angle of attack of 10o as shown. The free-stream temperature is
taken as 200 K. The wedge surface is yaken as a thermal wall maintained at a temperature of
300 K. The free-stream Knudsen (Kn) number is computed by taking wedge base length as
the characteristic length, which is 0.05. The properties of Argon gas molecules taken for the
computations and the physical boundary condition and other conditions are given in the table
1 and table 2 respectively. The time step of computations is 1 106 s. The equivalent number
of particle is taken as 5 1014 for a number density of 1.373 1020 .
Table 1.
wedge.

The molecular properties taken for Ar gas for the simulation of hypersonic flow over a

Tref (K)

dref (1010 )(m)

m(1010 )(kg)

1000

0.734

3.595

66.3

The predicted temperature and density contours and those presented by Liu et al. (2012)
within the domain for a free-stream Mach number of M = 10 and angle of attack, 10o are
shown in in figures 2 and 3. A comparison of normalized surface pressure distributions over
the inclined walls and comparison with Liu et al. (2012) is shown in fig. 4. A good agreement
between the two results can be seen.
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Table 2.

free-stream conditions for the simulation of hypersonic flow over a wedge.

V (m/s)

T (K)

Tb (K)

10

2635

200

300

1.373 1020

Fig. 1.

The computational domain for the analysis of hypersonic flow over wedge

(a) Liu et al.

Fig. 2.

(b) dsmcFoam

Contours of temperature in hypersonic flow over a wedge

Rarefied Flow over a Square Cylinder

Problem definition
Flow of Argon gas with a Mach number of 10 over a square cylinder of 1m side length
is simulated using DSMC method for different free-stream Knudsen number values such as
0.002, 0.01, 0.05 & 0.25. Fig. 5 shows the details of computational domain with boundary
conditions. The effect of angle of attack is also analyzed for = 0o , 15o , 30o & 45o . The
isothermal wall of temperature 500 K and free-stream boundary condition with a temperature
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(a) Liu et al.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

(b) dsmcFoam

Contours of density in hypersonic flow over a wedge

Variation of normalized pressure with axial distance along wedge wall

of 200 K are used.

Results and discussion
Effect of free-stream Knudsen number
Fig. 6 shows the Mach number and local Knudsen number contours and fig. 7 shows pressure
and temperature contours over the flow domain for hypersonic flow over the square cylinder.
The upstream face of the square cylinder is affected by major part of pressure drag compared
to the other walls. The peak temperature is obtained in the region away from the upstream wall
surface and the value of temperature distribution in the near wall regions is less than 2000 K.
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Fig. 5.

The computational domain for the analysis of hypersonic flow over square cylinder

Fig. 6 shows the distribution of temperature and velocity along the stagnation line. The shock
stand-off distance and shock thickness is higher in the case with Kn=0.25. An increase of 156
K is obtained in the peak temperature for low values of Knudsen number. At the downstream
of square cylinder values of temperature is less due to higher rarefied region. The surface
parameters such as pressure, shear stress and heat flux are obtained from the simulation. The
total drag and heat on the wall surface for different cases are compared. The effect of Knudsen
number and angle of attack on slip velocity and temperature jump are also obtained from the
analysis. Different Kn - shock stand-off distance.- Graph

(a) Kn=0.002

Fig. 6.

(b) Kn=0.01

(c) Kn=0.05

(d) Kn=0.25

Contours of Mach number and local Knudsen number for = 0

Mach -Temp - Pressure for different AOA - Table figure

Local Kn -effects
Surface CP -Ch -Cf - Graph
Slip/Temperature Jump - Graph
Over all heat - peak heat - drag - Table
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(a) Kn=0.002

(b) Kn=0.01

Fig. 7.

(c) Kn=0.05

(d) Kn=0.25

Contours of Pressure (Pa) and temperature (K) for = 0

Boundary layer - shock layer interaction

Table 3.

Overall performance parameters for the simulation of hypersonic flow over a square cylinder.

Kn

Pressure
Drag(N)

Total Heat
per unit area

Peak pressure(Pa)

Peak heat
(W/m2 )

0
0
0
0

0.002
0.01
0.05
0.25

9.72
1.89
0.39
0.082

2313
396
115
39

875
173
35
7.09

262000
39700
11600
3840

15
15
15
15

0.002
0.01
0.05
0.25

10.2
1.98
0.4
0.085

2472
424.74
121.47
41.27

897
173
34.7
7.21

334000
53400
15200
4890

30
30
30
30

0.002
0.01
0.05
0.25

11.65
2.3
0.46
0.094

2927.4
505.2
142.4
47.73

1020
186
37.3
7.74

412000
71900
20000
6060

45
45
45
45

0.002
0.01
0.05
0.25

13.55
2.67
0.53
0.11

3328.9
580.86
162.53
353.69

854
169
33.5
6.3

34200
70800
20300
5560

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Fig. 8. Contours of Mach number, pressure (Pa) and temperature (K) for Kn = 0.01 and =
0o , 15o , 30o &45o

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Conclusions
The DSMC simulation is carried out for rarefied hypersonic flow of Argon gas over a square
cylinder. The effect of Knudsen number, angle of attack and associated flow characteristics are
discussed. The variation of parameters in the flow domain are presented in the form of colour
contours. The distribution of slip velocity, temperature jump, pressure, shear stress, and heat
flux over the wall boundary is also reported.
References
1. Bird G.A., (1994). Molecular Gas Dynamics and the Direct Simulation of Gas Flows, Clarendon
Press, Oxford Science Publications.
2. Scanlon T.J., Roohi E., White C., Darbandi M., Reese J.M., (2010), An open source, parallel DSMC
code for rarefied gas flows in arbitrary geometries, Computers and Fluids, Volume 39-10, 2078-2089.
3. Lofthouse A.J., (2008), Non equilibrium hypersonic aerothermodynamics using Direct simulation
Monte Carlo and Navier-stokes models, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Michigan.
4. Bird G.A., (2006), The DS3V Program Users Guide, Version. 2.5, GAB Consulting Private Ltd,
Sydney.
5. Jasak H, Aleksandar J., Zeljko T, (2007), OpenFOAM: A C++ library for complex physics simulations International workshop on coupled methods in numerical dynamics, Vol. 1000, 1-20.
6. Liu, H., Cai, C., & Zou, C. (2012), An object oriented serial implementation of a DSMC simulation
package, Computers & Fluids, 57, 66-75.