Aerothermodynamic environment about a highly swept wing leading edge

Abstract

A numerical code has been developed to predict the aerothermodynamic environment of a highly swept wing leading edge at zero angle of attack, including the region outboard of the shock/shock intersection and a real-gas model for the thermodynamic properties as well as a perfect-gas model. Flowfield solutions generated by the code have been compared with wind tunnel data for wedge/swept-cylinder configurations and for the Space Shuttle Orbiter at zero angle of attack. The agreement between the computed flowfields and the experimental data is consistent with the approximations tacit to the flowfield model used in the numerical code. Furthermore, the computed heating rate histories for the wing leading edge at station 2yB/b = 0.55 are in reasonable agreement with the stagnation line flight measurements, even though the data for the flight are at an angle of attack while the computed values are for zero angle of attack.