A review and development of correlations for base pressure and base heating in supersonic flow

Abstract

A comprehensive review of experimental base pressure and base heating data related to supersonic and hypersonic flight vehicles has been completed. Particular attention was paid to free-flight data as well as wind tunnel data for models without rear sting support. Using theoretically based correlation parameters, a series of internally consistent, empirical prediction equations has been developed for planar and axisymmetric geometries (wedges cones, and cylinders). These equations encompass the speed range from low supersonic to hypersonic flow and laminar and turbulent forebody boundary layers. A wide°r ange of cone and wedge angles and cone bluntness ratios was included in the data base used to develop the correlations. The present investigation also included preliminary studies of the effect of angle of attack and specific-heat ' ratio of the gas. 3 OlSTRIBUTION OF TH!_"DOCUMENTl,SUNLIMITED Acknowledgment The authors thank Mary McWherter Walker of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Department at Sandia National Laboratories for computing the inviscid and parabolized Navier-Stokes solutions used in this study. The authors also thank David Kuntz and Vincent Amatucci of the Thermophysics Department at Sandia for reviewing this report and making a number of valuable suggestions.

Numerical Simulation of Base Pressure and Drag of Space Reentry Capsules at High Speed

“…Cassanto [1] has carried out a number of wind tunnel and free-flight experiments to obtain the base pressure. Lamb et al [2] have reviewed the base pressure on the reentry vehicle at high speed, which depends on wake flow characteristic, freestream conditions and edge properties of boundary layer at the shoulder of the module. The base pressure correlation for supersonic flows are compared by Kawecki [3] using the ground test data and with different vehicles such as ABC, MK-3, 4, 12, MTV, reentry F, REX, RVTO, SAMAST, TVX and WAC.…”