A hybrid CFD/characteristics method for fast characterization of hypersonic blunt forebody/inlet flow

Abstract

A hybrid CFD/characteristic method (CCM) was proposed for fast design and evaluation of hypersonic inlet flow with nose bluntness, which targets the combined advantages of CFD and method of characteristics. Both the accuracy and efficiency of the developed CCM were verified reliably, and it was well demonstrated for the external surfaces design of a hypersonic forebody/inlet with nose bluntness. With the help of CCM method, effects of nose bluntness on forebody shock shapes and the flowfield qualities which dominate inlet performance were examined and analyzed on the two-dimensional and axisymmetric configurations. The results showed that blunt effects of a wedge forebody are more substantial than that of related cone cases. For a conical forebody with a properly blunted nose, a recovery of the shock front back to that of corresponding sharp nose is exhibited, accompanied with a gradually fading out of entropy layer effects. Consequently a simplification is thought to be reasonable for an axisymmetric inlet with a proper compression angle, and a blunt nose of limited radius can be idealized as a sharp nose, as the spillage and flow variations at the entrance are negligible, even though the nose scale increases to 10% cowl lip radius. Whereas for two-dimensional inlets, the blunt effects are substantial since not only the inlet capturing/starting capabilities, but also the flow uniformities are obviously degraded.