Shock train/glancing shock/boundary layer interaction in a curved isolator with sidewall contraction

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Herein, a curved isolator with sidewall contraction of a hypersonic scramjet is extracted and simplified. The flow characteristics in the isolator with an entrance Mach number of 3.46 are studied. The results show that the lateral contraction of the sidewall generates a strong shock and its subsequent reflected shock, which induce glancing shock wave/boundary layer interaction (GSWBLI), rolling up large-scale vortices adjacent to the symmetry plane. As the downstream backpressure increases, the shock train propagates upstream and interacts with the glancing shock and vortices inevitably, forming a typical shock train/glancing shock/boundary layer interaction (STGSBLI) phenomenon. Different from the shock train in a straight isolator, it can be divided into two distinct parts, i.e., the center part and the side part. For the center part, it behaves in a quasi-two-dimensional manner, which is primarily associated with STGSBLI, forcing the low-momentum subsonic flow to principally accumulate near the symmetry plane and weakening the spanwise pressure gradient in the center part. For the side part, it locates behind the glancing and reflected shocks and is much shorter than the center part, resulting in a streamwise extension of the supersonic flow region near the sidewall. As the shock train moves upstream, the quasi-two-dimensional region enlarges and extends to the sidewall. It is demonstrated that the aforementioned two parts of the shock train can also be discovered in curved sidewall-contraction isolators with different centerlines. Therefore, the STGSBLI is the dominant and universal physical phenomenon in isolators with sidewall contraction.