Study of shock shapes around blunted conical bodies in hypersonic flow

Abstract

Abstract The study of supersonic and hypersonic flows remains one of the most complex areas to understand and simulate results, especially due to the various complexities. The objective of this study is to analyze the shock shapes, pressure distributions, coefficient of drag, coefficient of moment, and the shock standoff distance for hypersonic flow over blunted conical bodies. The density-based approach and implicit method have been used as they are the most suitable for compressible flows. A grid-independent study has been performed to ensure the results are independent of grid size. The simulations are performed for cones with different semi-apex angles and shoulder radii. The Mach number is varied from 5 to 10. Results are validated with the theoretical results obtained from empirical relations. It has been observed that as the apex angle increases, values of drag, moment coefficient, and the shock standoff distance increases. It was also observed that for a cone of given apex angle, as the Mach number increases, the values of drag coefficient and moment coefficient increases and the shock sstandoff distance decreases. The maximum increase in the drag on increasing the cone angle is 8.44%, and the maximum reduction in drag on increasing Mach number is 1.27%.