Large-eddy simulation of shock-wave/turbulent-boundary-layer interaction

Abstract

Well-resolved large-eddy simulations (LES) are performed in order to investigate flow phenomena and turbulence structure of the boundary layer along a supersonic compression ramp. The numerical simulations directly reproduce an available experimental result. The compression ramp has a deflection angle of grid points are used for discretizing the computational domain. To obtain mean flow and turbulence structure the flow is sampled 1272 times over 703 characteristic time scales of the incoming boundary layer. Statistical data are computed from these samples. An analysis of the data shows good agreement with the experiment in terms of mean quantities such as shock position, separation and reattachment location, skin-friction and surface-pressure distributions, and turbulence structure. The computational data confirm theoretical and experimental results on fluctuation amplification across the interaction region. In the wake of the main shock a shedding of shocklets is observed. The temporal behaviour of the coupled shock–separation system agrees well with experimental data. Unlike previous DNS the present simulation data provide indications of a large-scale shock motion. Also, evidence for the existence of three-dimensional large-scale streamwise structures, commonly referred to as Görtler-like vortices, is found.