Computational study of the cavity flow over sharp nose cone in supersonic flow

Abstract

Heat and drag reduction on the nose cone is a significant issue for increasing the speed of the supersonic vehicles. In this paper, computational fluid dynamic method is applied to investigate the thermal and drag coefficient on the sharp nose cone with different cavity shapes. In order to simulate our model, the CFD method with SST turbulence model is applied to study the flow feature and temperature distribution in the vicinity of the nose body. The effect of depth and length of the cavity on the thermal characteristic of the nose cone is comprehensively investigated. In addition, the influence of the number of the cavity in the thermal performance of the main body is studied. According to our results, increasing the length of the cavity highly efficient for the reduction of the drag at Mach = 3. As the Mach number is increased to 3, the number of the cavity becomes a significant role and it is observed that case 9 with four cavities is more efficient. Obtained results also show that increasing the cavity depth declines the temperature on the main body. Our findings confirm that the main source of the expansion is the edge of the cavity.