Magnetohydrodynamic-hypersonic viscous and inviscid flow near the stagnation point of a blunt body

Abstract

Abstract : An investigation is presented of the hypersonic viscous and inviscid flow past a spherical body which contains a magnetic dipole field aligned with the flow. Local-similarity solutions of the flow field are assumed near the stagnation point. The solution found differs from previous solutions in that the magnetic field is defined on the body rather than at the shock. The numerical results indicate that the critical values of the magnetic interaction parameter no longer appear as in previous works and that the shock displacement is much larger than formerly found for magnetic interaction parameters less than one. The latter result suggests that a magnetic field is a more useful device for controlling the hypersonic flow about a body than previously thought. (Author)