Waverider Crossflow Model Validation for Radial and Length Variations Between Osculating Planes

摘要

Waveriders are vehicles that ride on their self-induced shock wave system and are constructed from "known flow fields." Early waverider design approaches incorporated planes made from self-similar flowfields. Examples include Caret and Conical waveriders. For these waveriders, no pressure gradients existed between adjoining planes. Beginning with the Osculating Cones Method, and later with the Osculating Axisymmetric Method and the Osculating Flowfield Method, the flowfields on neighboring osculating planes were permitted to vary. This variability greatly increased the design space available and led to improvements in waverider aerodynamic performance and volumetric efficiencies. The implied assumption is that any crossflow that would occur would be negligible, and that the overall flowfield behavior would be preserved. Recently, the authors examined the Euler equations and developed a process to quantify the crossflow velocity between the osculating planes. This process has been validated for changes in spanwise gradients between the osculating planes. The purpose of the current work is to validate the new crossflow model for cases with radial variations and length changes between neighboring osculating planes. Three dimensional numerical simulations of the flowfield around several waverider geometries have been performed. The crossflow distributions on typical osculating planes of interest from these results have been compared to the predictions made by the model. While the selected geometries did not offer extensive opportunities for comparisons, the regions where comparisons were possible showed that the model agreed well with the three-dimensional results.