LAUSR

Abstract In this paper, a Non-Ablative Thermal Protection System (NATPS) with the spiked body and the opposing jet combined configuration is proposed to reduce the aerodynamic heating of the hypersonic vehicle, and the coupled fluid-thermal numerical analysis is performed to study the thermal control performance of the NATPS. The results show that the spiked body pushes the bow shock away from the protected structure and thus reduces the shock intensity and the wall heat flux. In addition, the low temperature gas of the opposing jet separates the high temperature gas behind the shock from the nose cone of the spiked body, ensuring the non-ablative property of the spiked body. Therefore, the NATPS reduces the aerodynamic heating by the reconfiguration of the flow field, and the thermal control efficiency of the system is better than the Thermal Protection System (TPS) with the single spiked body and the single opposing jet. The influencing factors of the NATPS are analyzed. Both increasing the length of the spiked body and reducing the total temperature of the opposing jet can improve the thermal control performance of the NATPS and the non-ablative property of the spiked body. However, increasing the heat conductivity coefficient of the spiked body can enhance benefit the non-ablative property of the spiked body, but has little influence on the thermal control performance of the NATPS.