On one-dimensional unsteady flow at infinite Mach number

Abstract

The use of the blast-wave analogy, as an aid to the interpretation of experimental data on the motion of a fluid past an obstacle at hypersonic speeds, has led to the theoretical study of its role in an asymptotic expansion of the solution to the governing equations at large distances downstream of the body. In all attempts to set up such an expansion it has proved necessary to divide the flow régime into two parts, an outer part dominated by the blast wave and an inner part consisting of streamlines which, originally, pass close by the body. The matching of these two regions is apparently only possible if a certain integral vanishes. In the present paper a numerical integration, in one particular set of circumstances, is carried out to test the validity of the asymptotic expansion proposed. Formally, an unsteady problem is tackled, for ease of computation, but the steady analogue follows immediately and is of exactly the form discussed in the earlier investigations. It is found that the main results are in line with the theory and that the integral in question is indistinguishable from zero. However, a deeper investigation of the asymptotic expansion shows that, for an expansion of the type envisaged, an infinite set of integrals must each vanish. The next integral does not appear to be zero according to our computations but this result is not believed to be conclusive. Assuming that all the integrals do vanish, then it appears that the inner layer, which although inviscid, has many of the characteristics of a viscous boundary layer, has the addi­tional, surprising property that it can exert no direct influence on the outer flow at large distances downstream of the body.