Influence of Expansion Waves on Cowl Shock/Boundary Layer Interaction in Hypersonic Inlets

Abstract

The cowl shock/boundary layer interaction is of great importance to the performance and operability of hypersonic inlets. However, it is usually affected by the expansion waves originated from the convex corner of the ramp surface (often called the shoulder), making the commonly used separation prediction relation unreliable. Therefore, the cowl shock/boundary layer interaction under the interference of the expansion waves is investigated by both theoretical analysis method and computational method in this paper. The results show that the expansion waves bring significant influence on the cowl shock/boundary layer interaction and four kinds of interaction processes exist when their relative position changes. When different interaction processes dominates the flowfield, the expansion waves may bring positive or negative effects on the shock/boundary layer interaction. In particular, while the cowl shock impinges near the shoulder, the interaction processes of shock–shock–expansion wave and shock–expansion wave–shock bring positive effects on the shock/boundary layer interaction and suppress the boundary layer separation.