Post-processing methods for wall heat-flux in aeroheating numerical simulation

A systematic study of post-processing methods for wall heat-flux in aeroheating numerical simulation was conducted and a post-processing method differing from conventional differential or integral methods was proposed. The comparisons among different post-processing methods were done by three cases. The results indicate that, even if the flow parameters remain the same, significant differences and grid-dependence in wall heat-flux prediction are observed using different post-processing methods. The differential method depends strongly on the grid used in calculations. Enhancement of the order of finite difference cannot always weaken its grid-dependence and improve its accuracy in wall heat-flux prediction, which is also related closely to the grid distribution near the wall. The integral method derived directly from the integral energy balance equation can significantly achieve a lower grid-dependence and thus a high accuracy. The proposed method can be compared with the integral method in the aspect of grid-dependence and accuracy. Especially, in the stagnation region, it has even weaker gird-dependence. Moreover, it is simpler and easier to be implemented numerically, thus further improving the computation efficiency.