Fully-Resolved Particulate-Induced Transition Simulations for High-Speed Boundary-Layers with an Immersed Boundary Method

Particulate induced-transition provides a possible path to turbulence for high-speed vehicles traveling through the atmosphere. Particulates impinging onto the surface of high-speed vehicles can trigger a wavepacket inside the boundary-layer which, based on the flow and particulate conditions, subsequently can grow substantially and ultimately transition the flow to turbulence. Modeling this transition scenario on a computer is highly challenging due to the large range of scales relevant to the problem including micron-size particulates and wavepackets with a streamwise extent of several boundary-layer thicknesses. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a high-fidelity simulation approach to model particulate-flow interactions for hypersonic transitional boundary-layers employing an established immersed boundary method. This high-fidelity simulation approach will be compared against the particle-source-in-cell method which is commonly used to model particulate-flow interactions. The particulate-laden flow simulations are conducted for a M=5.35 flat plate boundary layer flow considering different particulate impingement scenarios, e.g., for different impingement locations (upstream of neutral curve and inside unstable flow region) and impingement angles.