Side Force Characteristics of Slender-Bodied Supersonic Vehicle with Two Protuberances

Abstract

Typical launch vehicles feature several surface devices, such as ducts, cameras, and side jet motors. When these protuberances are asymmetrically distributed, an asymmetric vortex is formed around the vehicle, generating a side force. Furthermore, the side force induced by one protuberance may be reduced or increased by another, depending on their arrangement. Therefore, in this study, the side force characteristics and associated flowfield of a slender body with two protuberances were investigated for the Mach number 1.5. One of the protuberances was mounted leeward of the front portion of the vehicle (front protuberance), while the other was mounted at various azimuthal positions in the middle portion (middle protuberance), and both were on the port side. In particular, when the middle protuberance was on the windward side, its wake vortex was in proximity to the vehicle, reducing the side force. By contrast, when the middle protuberance was in the vehicle’s horizontal plane, the near-wall flow was entrained by the wake vortex of the middle protuberance, causing the flow deceleration. This induced high surface pressure on the port side, yielding an extremely high side force.