I'm new to this and need some advice...
 

So i have an internship this summer and they have just given me a project in which i no idea where to begin.

The project is to find cheap CFD software to analyze the convective heat transfer coefficients and boundary conditions for most launch vehicles.
-they already have the cart3D software, but they were hoping to get either the icepack or flotherm software...where should i look to do sufficient research on the difference of the coding itself in the different softwares? how do i know which one is going to be better for the launch vehicles specifically? and if anyone already knows any of the answers to my questions you could just let me know


THANKS
marilyn

by the way, i am incredibly unqualified in the world of CFD and legitimately know nothing pretty much, if someone could give me a retard explanation that someone in there second year of engineering school would understand about CFD that'd be awesome:D

I respect people who are honest and recognize their level of knowledge, here is a free book that you can legally download
http://www.topajka-shaw.co.nz/UCFD.html

good luck

I am fairly sure I have seen a paper from the Cart3d authors discussing wall functions (but I might be wrong). If your version does not have a boundary layer treatment I would suggest contacting the Cart3d authors to find out the current position. You might find there is an appropriate development version around. Cart3d is aimed at your type of high speed flow.

I do not know much about Icepack and Flowtherm. They are commercial codes but cheap/expensive depends on the cost of alternative ways of obtaining the desired information. Full scale experiments of launch vehicles at relevant speeds are likely to be fairly costly in comparison whatever the price of the software. An important thing to check is if the software can handle high speed flow accurately (or even at all) or only low speed incompressible flow. I would guess the main application area for these commercial codes is likely to be things like circuit boards and air conditioning.