Experimental and numerical investigation of the turbulent wake flow of a generic space launcher configuration

Abstract

The turbulent wake of a generic space launcher at cold hypersonic freestream conditions is investigated experimentally and numerically to gain detailed insight into the intricate base flow phenomena of space vehicles at upper stages of the flight trajectory. The experiments are done at Ma∞ = 6 and ReD = 1.7 · 106 m−1 by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the corresponding computations are performed by the Institute of Aerodynamics Aachen using a zonal Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes / Large-Eddy Simulation (RANS/LES) approach. Two different aft-body geometries consisting of a blunt base and an attached cylindrical nozzle dummy are considered. It is found that the wind tunnel model support attached to the upper side of the main body has a nonnegligible impact on the wake along the whole circumference, albeit on the opposite side, the effects are minimal compared to an axisymmetric configuration. In the blunt-base case, the turbulent supersonic boundary layer undergoes a strong aftexpansion on the model shoulder leading to the formation of a confined low-pressure (p/p∞ ≈ 0.2) recirculation region. Adding a nozzle dummy causes the shear layer to reattach on the its wall at x/D ∼ 0.6 and the base pressure level to increase (p/p∞ ≈ 0.25) compared to the blunt-base case. For both configurations, the pressure fluctuations on the base wall feature dominant frequencies at SrD ≈ 0.05 and SrD ≈ 0.2-0.27, but are of small amplitudes (prms /p∞ = 0.02-0.025) compared to the main body boundary layer. For the nozzle dummy configuration, when moving downstream along the nozzle extension, the wall pressure is increasingly influenced by the reattaching shear layer and the periodic low-frequency behavior becomes less pronounced. Directly behind the reattachment point, the wall pressure reaches maximum mean and root-mean-square (rms) values of about p/p∞ = 1 and p′rms /p∞ = 0.1 and features a broadband specrms trum without distinct frequencies determined by the incoming turbulent supersonic boundary layer.