Effect of Counter Flowing Jet on Heat Transfer and Drag in Hypersonic Re-entry Vehicle

Abstract

Abstract. All the re-entry vehicles usually travel at hypersonic velocities, there are some design constraints pertaining to them such as aerodynamic drag and heat, which are mutually conflicting. A sharp edged slender body offers longer range and lesser drag but it causes higher aerodynamic heat. Generally, blunt shaped nose is used for the re-entry vehicles as it can disperse the accumulated heat to the surroundings better than sharp edged bodies. The current work focuses on reduction of aerodynamic heating by the introduction of a single jet injection on the stagnation point. Different jet angle configurations are used for the analysis by maintaining the angle of attack of the body constant. It is found that for body at 6-degree angle of attack the optimum jet angle is 9 degrees and the corresponding reduction in peak heat flux is 22.7% compared to the heat flux when the jet is at zero degrees and 33% compared to the case without jet.

Parametric Optimisation of Hypersonic Re-entry Capsules with Air-Duct Systems

“…In [8], researchers attempted to overcome the aerodynamic optimisation problem through introducing a front facing cavity that induces an opposing jet effect on the front of the blunt body, which helped reducing the peak heat flux on a blunt body by upwards of 33% compared to an unmodified blunt body. The latter finding has been inferred in [9], which has led to a net decrease in heat flux values, thereby improving heat transfer characteristics of the vehicle.…”