Characterization of a transitional hypersonic boundary layer in wind tunnel and flight conditions

Laminar turbulent transition is known for a long time as a critical phenomenon influencing the thermal load encountered by hypersonic vehicle during their planetary re-entry trajectory. Despite the efforts made by several research laboratories all over the world, the prediction of transition remains inaccurate, leading to oversized thermal protection system and dramatic limitations of hypersonic vehicles performances. One of the reasons explaining the difficulties encountered in predicting transition is the wide variety of parameters playing a role in the phenomenon. Among these parameters, surface roughness is known to play a major role and has been investigated in the present thesis.<p><p>A wide bibliographic review describing the main parameters affecting transition and their coupling is proposed. The most popular roughness-induced transition predictions correlations are presented, insisting on the lack of physics included in these methods and the difficulties encountered in performing ground hypersonic transition experiments representative of real flight characteristics. This bibliographic review shows the importance of a better understanding of the physical phenomenon and of a wider experimental database, including real flight data, for the development of accurate prediction methods.<p><p>Based on the above conclusions, a hypersonic experimental test campaign is realized for the characterization of the flow field structure in the vicinity and in the wake of 3D roughness elements. This fundamental flat plate study is associated with numerical simulations for supporting the interpretation of experimental results and thus a better understanding of transition physics. Finally, a model is proposed in agreement with the wind tunnel observations and the bibliographic survey.<p><p>The second principal axis of the present study is the development of a hypersonic in-flight roughness-induced transition experiment in the frame of the European EXPERT program. These flight data, together with various wind tunnel measurements are very important for the development of a wide experimental database supporting the elaboration of future transition prediction methods.Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur