Plume Interaction and Base Flow Analysis of a Twin Engine Flight Vehicle

Abstract

3D RANS simulations are performed to study the multi jet interactions of a twin engine gimbal configuration of an aerospace vehicle at different time instants. Simulations captured all the essential features of the flow field and interaction between the neighboring jets did not occur because of low altitudes and moderate under-expansion of the jets considered in the simulations. For higher gimbal angle, two jets were the closest but still did not interact. Detail exploration of the downstream flow field revealed that the distinct features of the jets are retained at the farthest downstream locations; although the pressure field reached the uniformity. Average base pressure ratios for the three different time instances are 0.91, 0.547 and 0.522 and maximum base temperature is of the order 800 K.