Experimental study of internal forces and moments generated by strut injection in a supersonic cross-flow in a C-D nozzle

Abstract

An experimental investigation was conducted to obtain wall pressure distribution in a convergent divergent nozzle with a strut inserted through the diverging wall and to find out the possible generation of side force. The strut inserted through the nozzle wall represented an active control method for thrust vector control. Laboratory tests were carried out to examine whether this type of strut injection would be effective and serve as an alternative thrust vector control method for the other widely used such as secondary injection thrust vector control. The nozzle model used in the experiments had a design Mach number of 1.84 with a corresponding area ratio of 1.48. The solid strut which was inserted through the diverging wall of the nozzle had a square cross section. Experiments were conducted for identifying three different strut positions from the nozzle throat, i.e. at Ld/3, Ld/2, and 2Ld/3, where Ld was the length of the diverging section of the nozzle. At each strut position, the strut height was varied and the maximum strut height corresponded to the radius of the local cross section where the strut was inserted. The nozzle was operated at overexpansion conditions such as nozzle pressure ratios of 3.4 and 5. The strut side and the opposite side of the nozzle wall had eight wall pressure tappings each and the wall pressure data were obtained using a pressure scanner. The asymmetrical pressure distributions of the strut side and the non-strut side (opposite side) of nozzle wall were used for the calculation of side force and pitching moment in the nominal plane through the wall pressure ports of both sides. The calculated two-dimensional side force, axial force, and pitching moment coefficients were plotted against strut height at each strut position from the nozzle throat. From the experimental data and calculations, it was found that the axial force varied more or less linearly with strut height irrespective of the strut position. However, the side force and pitching moments varied nonlinearly with strut height and the nature of variation of the two was similar. Both the side force and pitching moment exhibited maximum and minimum values at two specific values of the strut height. The change in the strut position did not alter the nature of the above variations and the strut height values for maximum and minimum. The magnitude of the side force was found to be 1–10% of the axial force generated as a fluid dynamic pressure drag. Both positive and negative side force and pitching moments were produced with increase in the strut height.