High enthalpy shock tunnel flow past a cylinder : A basis for CFD validation

Basic aerodynamic configurations are well suited to study fundamental aspects of high enthalpy flows. A test campaign of the flow around a cylinder has been performed in the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel Gottingen BEG. Density distributions were measured in the shock layer as well as surface pressure and heat flux. The flow in the shock layer is subjected to various relaxation phenomena and therefore the presented measurements provide a good basis for the validation of physico-chemical models used in CFD-codes. This paper presents results of the test campaign and comparisons of measurements to numerical computations. The sensitivity of the CFD results to different parameters of physico-chemical models will be discussed.