Code-verification techniques for hypersonic reacting flows in thermochemical nonequilibrium

Highlights: • Code-verification techniques are presented for hypersonic reacting flows in thermochemical nonequilibrium • Techniques include manufactured and exact solutions, as well as an approach for the algebraic thermochemical source term • These techniques successfully identify coding errors in the spatial discretization and algebraic source term The study of hypersonic flows and their underlying aerothermochemical reactions is particularly important in the design and analysis of vehicles exiting and reentering Earth's atmosphere. Computational physics codes can be employed to simulate these phenomena; however, verification of these codes is necessary to certify their credibility. To date, few approaches have been presented for verifying codes that simulate hypersonic flows, especially flows reacting in thermochemical nonequilibrium. In this paper, we present our code-verification techniques for verifying the spatial accuracy and thermochemical source term in hypersonic reacting flows in thermochemical nonequilibrium. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques on the Sandia Parallel Aerodynamics and Reentry Code (SPARC).