Numerical Investigation of Sweep Angle Effect on the Supersonic Flows through Corners

Abstract

This research intends to characterize numerically the impact of sweep angle on the supersonic sharp corner flows. For this purpose, the effect of sweep angle on the variations of flow parameters such as shear stress, temperature, and pressure on the corner surface and also on the shock structure is examined. To ensure the accuracy of current numerical model, validation is performed with previous researches and reasonable agreements are observed. Results indicate that the inclusion of sweep angle has a significant effect on the Mach reflection strength and thus on the flow parameters’ variations on the corner surface. It is found that the role of sweep angle in changing the flow parameters’ variations in the zones near the trailing edge is of less significance than those that are close to the leading edge. It is shown that the inclusion of sweep angle has a little effect on the separation zone size although it tends to increase slightly the separation region length along the wing span at the trailing edge. Results demonstrate that the increase in sweep angle causes the shock structure and thus the Mach stem to become closer to the wing geometry. It is also seen that an increase in sweep angle leads to an increase in the Mach stem length.