Dynamics of Shock Dispersion and Interactions in Supersonic Freestreams with Counterflowing Jets

An active flow control concept using counterflowing jets to significantly modify the external flowfields and strongly weaken or disperse the shock-waves of supersonic and hypersonic vehicles to reduce the aerothermal loads and wave drag was investigated. Experiments were conducted in a trisonic blow-down wind-tunnel, complemented by pre-test computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of a 2.6% scale model of Apollo capsule, with and without counterflowing jets, in Mach 3.48 and 4.0 freestreams, to assess the potential aerothermal and aerodynamic benefits of the concept. The model was instrumented with heat flux gauges, thermocouples and pressure taps, and employed five counterflowing jet nozzles (three sonic and two supersonic with design Mach numbers of 2.44 and 2.94) and nozzle exit diameters ranging from 0.25 to 0.5 inch. Schlieren data show that at low jet flow rates of 0.05 and 0.1lbm/sec, the interactions result in a long penetration mode (LPM) jet, while the short penetration mode (SPM) jet is observed at flow rates greater than 0.1lbm/sec, consistent with the pre-test CFD predictions. For the LPM, the jet appears to be nearly fully-expanded, resulting in an unsteady flow structure in which the bow shock becomes highly dispersed such that it is no longer discernable. Higher speed camera Schlieren data reveal the shock to be dispersed into striations of compression waves, which suddenly coalesce to a weaker bow shock with a larger standoff distance as the flow rate reached a critical value. The pronounced shock dispersion could significantly impact spacecraft aerodynamic performance (L/D) and heat transfer in atmospheric entry and re-entry, and could also attenuate the entropy layer in hypersonic blunt body flows. For heat transfer, the results show significant reduction in heat flux, even giving negative heat flux for some of the SPM interactions, indicating that the flow wetting the model is cooling, instead of heating the model, which could also significantly impact the requirements and design of thermal protection system. These findings strongly suggest that the application of counterflowing jets as active flow control could have strong impact on supersonic and hypersonic vehicle design and performance.