Dynamics of Shock Structure and Frontal Drag Force in a Supersonic Flow Past a Blunt Cone under the Action of Plasma Formation

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the experimental and CFD investigation of a plasma formation impact on the supersonic flow over a body “blunt cone-cylinder”. In the experiments, a series of schlieren pictures of bow shock wave–blast waves non-stationary interaction was obtained with the use of high speed shadowgraphy. The accompanying calculations are based on the system of Euler equations. The freestream Mach number is 3.1. The plasmoid is modeled by the instantaneous release of energy into a bounded volume of gas, increasing the pressure in the volume. The research of the dynamics of a shock wave structure caused by the bow shock wave and blast flow interaction has been conducted. The significant value of energy released to a supersonic flow (500J) allowed constructing a diagram of the generation and dynamics of the resulting shock waves and contact discontinuities, as well as obtaining a significant drop in the drag force and stagnation pressure (up to 80%). The dynamics of a low density and high gas temperature zone, which becomes the main factor reducing the frontal body drag force, was researched. The dynamics of the front surface drag forces have been studied for different values of the plasmoid energy as well. Qualitative agreement of the numerical flow patterns with the experiment ones has been obtained.

Keywords

• supersonic flow
• bow shock wave
• plasmoid
• blast shock wave
• shock-wave structure
• drag force reduction