Visualization of Supersonic Low-Noise Flow Over Surface-Mounted Two-Dimensional Prisms

Abstract

An experimental study of supersonic flow over two-dimensional surface-mounted prisms is carried out in a Mach 3 low-noise wind tunnel. The noise level of this supersonic wind tunnel, defined as the root mean-square Pitot pressure fluctuation normalized by the mean Pitot pressure, can be reduced to about 0.37%. The nanotracer planar laser scattering (NPLS) technique is used to analyze the influence of the prism geometry and the oncoming flow conditions on the typical flow structures including separation and reattachment shocks. With increase in the prism height the induced shocks move upstream. At a constant streamwise length L of a prism the timeaveraged NPLS images show that the length of the downstream recirculation region increases from 0.8L to 1.2L, when the prism height H changes from 3 to 5 mm. As compared with the flow structures occurring downstream of the prisms, the upstream flow structures are more susceptible to the oncoming boundary layer and are considerably different in laminar and turbulent flows. The separation shock wave is clearly visible in turbulent flow even for the 1-mm prism, whereas in the case of laminar flow there is no a distinct shock wave upstream of this prism. At the same time, the location of the flow reattachment and the angle of the reattachment shock wave in the downstream flow remain almost the same in both two flow regimes.