Numerical Investigation of Aerodynamic and Aeroheating Characteristics of Blunted Cone and Wedge for High Mach Number Flow

Abstract

In this study, the impacts of the windward shape on the aerodynamic and aero-heating characteristics of supersonic vehicles were investigated using the blunted cone and blunted wedge models. Then, three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulations were performed under three different attack angles (0°, 10°, and 20°) with the Mach number of 10. The prediction accuracy of the adopted approach was validated against a published shock tunnel experiment. The numerical results suggested that the airflow structure, boundary layer parameters, aero-heating, and boundary layer transition were highly affected by the windward shape of supersonic vehicles. Under the same attack angle, the entropy layer thickness for the blunted wedge was found to be obviously greater than that of the blunted cone, whereas the detachment of windward shock waves for the blunted wedge was more obvious than that of the blunted cone. Moreover, the boundary layer parameters of both blunted cone and wedge were found to vary with the position in the flow direction. The commonly used constant assumption for the boundary layer parameters in engineering might be inaccurate and induce undesired errors. Furthermore, the boundary layer transition was found to more easily occur for a blunted wedge due to more significant instability in a streamwise direction. However, cross-flow instability might occur for a blunted cone under nonzero attack angles. In addition, the ratio of St number of the blunted cone to that of the blunted wedge at downstream was inconsistent with the commonly used empirical value of 1.73, especially under large attack angles (≥10°) because of variable-entropy effects and cross-flow on the blunted cone surface.