  Immersed boundary (IB) methods with adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) techniques
are assessed for atmospheric entry applications, including effects of chemical
nonequilibrium (CNE) and gas-surface interactions (GSI). The performance of a
conservative cut-cell and two non-conservative ghost-cell IB methods is
assessed in comparison with analytical solutions, data from literature, and
results obtained with a reference solver that operates on body-fitted grids.
All solvers use the same external thermochemistry library so that all observed
differences can be attributed to the underlying numerical methods. Results from
eight benchmark cases are reported. Four cases are selected to verify the
implementation of chemistry, transport properties, catalytic boundary
conditions, and shock capturing. Four validation cases consider blunt
geometries with adiabatic/isothermal and inert/catalytic/ablative boundary
conditions. Overall, the results obtained with the IB solvers are in very good
agreement with the reference data. Discrepancies arise with ghost-cell methods
for cases with large temperature or concentration gradients at the wall and are
attributed to mass conservation errors. Only a strictly conservative cut-cell
IB method is on par with body-fitted grid methods.
