Flow Control in a Mach 4.0 Inlet by Slotted Wedge-shaped Vortex Generators

Abstract

This work investigates the effectiveness of a relatively novel flow control device, the slotted vortex generator, in mitigation of shock-induced flow separation in a realistic mixedcompression inlet geometry. The presence of sidewalls in an actual inlet makes the interactions between the oblique shocks and the boundary layers highly three dimensional. As such the flow separation and its control in a real inlet is more involved than that investigated based on notions of a primarily 2-D separation region. This work makes an attempt to determine an effective streamwise and spanwise arrangement of vortex generators in an actual inlet to minimize the flow separation. The inlet considered for the simulations are based on the experiments conducted by Emami and co-workers at NASA Glenn research center at Mach 4.03 to determine performance of an inlet/isolator configuration. The present work uses a computational domain for one such inlet configuration -having the smallest sized cowl -and a large convergence angle to produce a strong cowl lip shock. The computations performed are computed using the REACTMB code suitable for high-speed turbulent flows. The turbulence model used is Menter's SST model.