Open AccessOn Unsteady Flow Analysis of a Round Spike Blunt Nose Afterbody in Mach 6 Flow
Author(s) -
Ashish Vashishtha,
Shashank Khurana
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
iop conference series. materials science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1757-899X
pISSN - 1757-8981
DOI - 10.1088/1757-899x/1024/1/012017
Subject(s) - spike (software development) , mach number , mechanics , laminar flow , drag , flow (mathematics) , aerodynamics , physics , wake , materials science , lift (data mining) , engineering , computer science , software engineering , data mining
An aerospike, in front of a blunt body, has largely been deemed as a key passive control device for effectively reducing the wave drag and aerodynamic heating associated with high-speed flows. In addition, it has been reported that the presence of a spike brings in unsteadiness in the form of oscillation and pulsation to the flow characteristics. Past researchers, having investigated mainly the aerothermodynamic coefficients, have hinted towards the suppressing of such oscillations with the use of a round nose spike over a sharp spike, though a thorough and a concrete result is yet to be established together with offering a detailed explanation of the flow physics and its dependence on the spike’s geometric characteristics (spike-length to afterbody-diameter ratio, L/D) . Numerical investigation has been carried out using axisymmetric Navier-Stokes laminar flow solver at hypersonic Mach number of 6.0. A round-tip spike with a flat face cylindrical afterbody have been simulated for spike length ratios of L/D = 0.5 – 2.0, with spike diameter to-afterbody diameter (d/D) of 0.1. The behavior and subsequent control of flow pulsation for a round (hemispherical) spike with varying L/D-ratio has been established.