Rarefied gas flow around cylindrical bodies (Q1571324)

The authors apply the conservative discrete-ordinate method to nonlinear Boltzmann equation to analyze a supersonic flow past a cylinder at small Knudsen numbers. By combining a conservative evaluation of Boltzmann integral and a conservative scheme for free molecular flow in curvilinear coordinates, the authors compute flows of complex geometry. In the flow past a cylinder of triangular cross section with rounded corners at Kn=0.01, a vortex is observed, which indicates that the numerical algorithm employed is quite efficient.