Numerical study on lateral jet interaction in supersonic crossflows

Abstract

This paper presents numerical analyses of lateral jets in supersonic cross flows on a flat plate and on a generic missile. The freestream Mach number is 4 for the flat plate and 3 for the missile, and the jets are sonic for both cases. The numerical results are validated with wind tunnel data such as Schlieren images and surface pressure distributions. The flow structure due to the jet interaction with the supersonic free-stream is examined in terms of the vortex structure. A 3-dimensional compressible RANS solver is used for the study. To describe the effects of high temperature, a thermally perfect gas is assumed. When high temperature is applied, the shock structure changes, which affects the separation region and recirculation zone. Next, the effects of turbulence models on the jet interaction flow are investigated. The Spalart–Allmaras, Menter's shear-stress transport k–ω, Huang and Coakley's k–ε, and Coakley's q–ω models are used to analyze the flows. The differences in pressure distribution among the turbulence models are larger in the case of the flat plate than the missile. In addition, several numerical flux functions are compared to investigate their effects on the jet interaction: the Roe scheme with Sanders's H-correction, RoeM scheme, and the HLLE scheme. Although the HLLE scheme shows a little difference at the indent of the barrel shock, the three numerical flux schemes give similar CP distributions on the wall.