Comparison of Numerical and Experimental “Conical” Flow Fields in Supersonic Corners with Compression and/or Expansion

Summary The flow field produced by the intersection of two plane solid surfaces in a supersonic stream is a complex interference flow. These flows can be fully compressive, fully expansive or of mixed compression-expansion nature. This paper presents a comparison of the flow field structure in an axial corner obtained experimentally with that predicted numerically by using a shock-capturing finite-difference method. The effect of sweep and surface deflection are evaluated and the general influence of each is presented for the three classes of corner flows. The results of this study show that the numerical method is a valuable aid in understanding the flow structure for simple configurations. In addition confidence in the numerical method is gained for use in solving the more general three-dimensional configurations where the flow is non-conical and several wave interactions may be present.