The effect of coolant injection from the tip of spike on aerodynamic heating of nose cone at supersonic flow

Abstract

Aerodynamic heating is the main challenge for increasing the speed of hypervelocity vehicles. In this work, three-dimensional numerical simulations have been performed to investigate the influence of the cooling injection from the tip of the spike mounted on the nose cone. This work comprehensively focused on the effect of different types of gas injections (Air, He and CO2) on the flow feature and mechanism of cooling through three-dimensional simulations. Comprehensive parametric studies are performed to reveal the main effective parameters on the cooling performance along the nose cone. In order to perform numerical simulations, Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations with Menter's Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model are applied. Our findings show that the injection of the CO2 jet from the tip of a spike is more efficient on the cooling of the nose cone due to the formation of larger circulation in the vicinity of the spike. In addition, the mass distribution of these two jets confirms that helium jets penetrate more in the upstream. Our results clearly show that the effect of the helium in low jet pressure is more significant on the cooling performance of the nose cone.