Improvement in Drag and Control Characteristics of Hypersonic Vehicles Through the Use of the Nonlinear Properties of the Enveloping Plasma.

摘要

When we first reported our ideas about the role of vorticity in plasma-shock interactions at 1996 Prinston AFOSR meeting, there was mixed reaction among the researchers in the field. Although some of them thought that we suggested a correct explanation of Ganguly's shock-tube experiments, others were doubtful (including Ganguly himself) and continued to believe that ionization is important for the physics involved. The past few years has seen us and other research groups (e.g. Macharet et al, Leonov et al) test our ideas, and by now it is clear and broadly acknowledged that it is the vorticity dynamics that is the key process responsible for the shock modifications and the drag reduction at moderate Mach numbers.