Three-Dimensional Shock Topology Detection Method via Tomographic Reconstruction

Abstract

Shock waves and shock-shock interaction are typical phenomena in supersonic or hypersonic flows that have significant impacts on aerodynamic performance. To obtain a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of shock wave interaction, shock wave detection (SWD) methods are required. However, it is often challenging for most current SWD methods to identify the relationship between shock waves (also known as shock topology). To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel three-dimensional shock topology detection method based on the tomographic reconstruction strategy. This method involves extracting parallel slices from the flow field, then utilizing a two-dimensional shock topology recognition algorithm to obtain shock lines. Shock bands are obtained by connecting shock lines for every two adjacent slices, and shock surfaces are generated by assembling shock bands. Interaction lines are also formed by connecting interaction points. The detected shock wave is a structure composed of “point-line-band-surface”, and the topology relationship with other shock waves is obvious. Numerical results show that the shock waves detected by the proposed method can be categorized into families. Moreover, the shock surfaces generated by this method are free of gaps, holes, and un-physical fragments, which is an improvement over existing SWD methods.