Flow Field Computations Over Conical, Disc and Flat Spiked Body at Mach 6

Abstract

A forward facing spike attached to a hemispherical body significantly changes its flow field and influences aerodynamic drag and wall heat flux in a high speed flow. The dynamic pressure in the recirculation area is highly reduced and thus leads to the decrease in the drag and heat load on the surface. Consequently, the geometry, that is, the length and shape of the spike, has to be simulated to obtain a large conical recirculation region in front of the blunt body to get beneficial drag reduction. It is, therefore, a potential candidate for aerodynamic drag and surface heat flux reduction of a future high speed vehicle. Axisymmetric compressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a finite volume discretization in conjunction with a multistage Runge-Kutta time stepping scheme. The effect of the spike length, shape, and spike nose configuration on the reduction of drag and heat flux is numerically evaluated at Mach 6 at zero angle of attack and different aerospike shape. The computed density contours agree well with the schlieren images. The numerical simulations reveals that the aerodisk is having better drag reduction capability as compared with the aerospike and that the aerodisk of appropriate length, diameter, and nose configuration.