Experimental study of the gas flow around polyhedral spatial body

This study concerns the issue of the gas flow around polyhedral special body. This issue is related with the development of the head part of all-aspect air pressure probe designed for the use on existing and future aircrafts. Such probe has a fixed flow around the entire operational range of Reynolds numbers. To clarify the physical features of the flow around the developed polyhedral special body under various conditions of the incoming flow, a number of experimental studies were carried out in the wind tunnels of TsAGI. The patterns of marginal streamlines and distribution of frictional stresses on the surface of the body, as well as the distribution of streamlines in the vicinity of body models with different numbers of faces were obtained. The pressure distribution on the face of a polyhedral body at different angles of attack and free-stream velocities was investigated. The areas of local separations and the position of the global flow separation were determined. It was shown that the position of the global separation line corresponds to the supercritical flow regime, starting with minimal Reynolds numbers.