COMPUTATIONAL HYPERSONIC RAREFIED FLOWS

Recent considerable progress in the field of rarefied hypersonic computational fluid dynamics (CFD) gives reason to address its evolution to an independent CFD branch that covers many fundamental and closely related applied problems of high-altitude aerothermodynamics of space vehicles. The primary purpose of this review is to describe the main numerical methods and real gas models for investigation of problems of rarefied hypersonic flows, and to review results that we believe demonstrate most clearly the achievements and capabilities of the field of rarefied hypersonic CFD in the last years.