Prospects for DNS and LES of Ablating Surfaces

The interaction of a turbulent boundary layer with an ablative surface is known to produce cross-hatching and scalloping of the surface under certain conditions (e.g. Grabow and White 1975). These patterns are known to increase the convective heating and the rate of ablation. Recent developments in low-dissipation high-order numerical methods, computational grids, and large-scale computation promise to make it possible to directly simulate flows at relevant high-enthalpy conditions. In this talk we discuss the prospects and requirements for using these high-fidelity simulations to fully understand surface pattern formation under turbulent flow conditions. Examples of recent simulations will be used to illustrate the potential of this approach