Computation of viscous flow characteristics of a supersonic intake using eddy-viscosity turbulence models

Abstract

Results of numerical investigation of flow and performance characteristics of a rectangular supersonic intake experimentally tested at Mach number of 4.03 are presented. The viscous flowfield has been obtained by solving Favre averaged Navier–Stokes equations with two eddy viscosity turbulence models, namely, Mentor’s baseline (BSL) k-ω and shear stress transport (SST) k-ω models. In addition, the effect of wall temperature conditions as well as several configurations of cowl and isolator are simulated to validate the computational methodology. The analysis has been carried out at a freestream Mach number of 4.03 and 0° angle-of-attack, corresponding to a unit Reynolds number of about 6.9×107 m−1. The predicted boundary-layer and the wall static pressure distribution using SST k-ω model shows better agreement with the experimental data compared to the BSL model and hence indicates superior capability to capture the onset and the amount of flow separation due to SWBLIs. Moreover, the terminal shock structure at different operating modes as well as the “unstart because of SWBLIs” is predicted quite accurately using the model. The wall temperature condition is found to have a strong effect on the amount of flow separation at the cowl and the subsequent interactions. Further, the results show that the sidewalls have a marginal effect on the centerline wall static pressure, though a three-dimensional flowfield with two stream-wise vortices are observed close to it as a result of the swept SWBLIs of the cowl shock with the sidewall boundary-layer leading to a higher loss in performance.