DETERMINATION OF HYPERSONIC FLOW FIELDS BY THE METHOD OF CHARACTERISTICS

AIAA Journal ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
pp. 1693-1694 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. A. POWERS ◽  
J. B. O'NEILL
1959 ◽  
Vol 63 (585) ◽  
pp. 508-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. W. Mangler

When a body moves through air at very high speed at such a height that the air can be considered as a continuum, the distinction between sharp and blunt noses with their attached or detached bow shocks loses its significance, since, in practical cases, the bow wave is always detached and fairly strong. In practice, all bodies behave as blunt shapes with a smaller or larger subsonic region near the nose where the entropy and the corresponding loss of total head change from streamline to streamline due to the curvature of the bow shock. These entropy gradients determine the behaviour of the hypersonic flow fields to a large extent. Even in regions where viscosity effects are small they give rise to gradients of the velocity and shear layers with a lower velocity and a higher entropy near the surface than would occur in their absence. Thus one can expect to gain some relief in the heating problems arising on the surface of the body. On the other hand, one would lose farther downstream on long slender shapes as more and more air of lower entropy is entrained into the boundary layer so that the heat transfer to the surface goes up again. Both these flow regions will be discussed here for the simple case of a body of axial symmetry at zero incidence. Finally, some remarks on the flow field past a lifting body will be made. Recently, a great deal of information on these subjects has appeared in a number of reviewing papers so that little can be added. The numerical results on the subsonic flow regions in Section 2 have not been published before.


The equations of the steady state, compressible inviscid gaseous flow are linearized in a form suitable for application to nozzles of the Laval type. The procedure in the supersonic phase is verified by comparing solutions so obtained with those derived by the method of characteristics in two and three dimensions. Likewise, the solutions in the transonic phase are com pared with those obtained by other investigators. The linearized equation is then used to investigate the nat re of non-symmetric flow in rocket nozzles. It is found that if the flow from the combustion chamber into the nozzle is non-symmetric, the magnitude and direction of the turning couple produced by the emergent jet is dependent on the profile of the nozzle and it is possible to design profiles such that the turning couples or lateral forces are zero. The optimum nozzle so designed is independent of the pressure and also of the magnitude of the non-symmetry of the entry flow. The formulae by which they are obtained have been checked by extensive static and projection tests with simulated rocket test vehicles which are described in this paper.


1978 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 690-696 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Anderson ◽  
T. J. Dahm

Solutions of the two-dimensional, unsteady integral momentum equation are obtained via the method of characteristics for two limiting modes of light gas launcher operation, the “constant base pressure gun” and the “simple wave gun”. Example predictions of boundary layer thickness and heat transfer are presented for a particular 1 in. hydrogen gun operated in each of these modes. Results for the constant base pressure gun are also presented in an approximate, more general form.


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