This paper examines what would happen if a supersonic vehicle flies through an atmosphere laden with ice
particles. In previous research of the present authors, an experiment was performed to determine the characteristics
of ice-particle impact phenomenon. Therein, the mass loss from the vehicle’s surface material by the impacts was
measured and the fragments’ behavior was studied. In the present work, the trajectories of fragments from the
stagnation region were calculated at the experimental conditions. It was surmised that the flow in the stagnation
region is turbulent. Turbulent flow increases the heat transfer rate to the surface, and consequently the mass loss
increases. To determine the extent of heat transfer rate increase, the new turbulence model, tentatively named craterinduced
turbulence model, was proposed. Therein, an assumption was introduced that the turbulent mixing length is
proportional to the depth of the impact craters. The constant of proportionality was determined from the existing
experimental data taken in wind-tunnel tests. It is shown that heat transfer rate may increase up to 14 times that
without ice-particle impacts.