Semi-empirical relations for pressure distributions in hypersonic regime

The growing interest for space activities causes the need to develop fast tools, able to estimate the pressure distribution at space vehicles such as shuttles or Earth reentry capsules in hypersonic regime. This paper deals with development of a quick prediction of aerodynamic loads for all phases of the hypersonic regime: continuum, transition and free molecular flow. An assessment of different methods for the hypersonic regime will be made and the results obtained with the developed tool will be presented and compared. Methods like Modified Newton, Dahlem-Buck for continuum flow regime, Schaaf and Chambre for free molecular regime and bridging functions for transitional regime will be analyzed.