Abstract:
The basic aim of research and development on commercial flights is to achieve high-
altitude, long-range and high-speed travel. However, due to high aerodynamic drag and
heating effects the speed is being curtailed to subsonic and transonic flow regimes. For this
purpose, several active and passive flow control methods have been used to manipulate flow
fields. Similarly, to alter the nature of shock waves in front of blunt bodies, the hybrid flow
control methods that merge both active and passive methods are also under consideration. In
this research endeavor, the passive and hybrid optimization of blunt bodies for aerodynamic
wave drag and heat reduction is conducted numerically, and optimization through “Design
of Experiment (DOE)” is adopted to determine the optimum relation between spike length
and diameter of aerodisk in front of main blunt body. Besides these, the position of rearmost
aerodisk varied 25%, 50% and 75% along the length of the aerospike is also studied. By
using commercial CFD code, the computational setup is developed to validate the flow field
ahead of blunt body with experimental results. Numerical simulations have been conducted
on spiked blunt body with single and double aerodisk configurations to investigate the
effectiveness of passive and hybrid design optimization in reducing wave drag and
aerodynamic heating effects. During analysis It has also been reported that multidisk spike
is beneficial for reduction of both aerodynamic drag and heating at supersonic speed as
compared to single aerodisk configuration. Particularly, through the inclusion of opposing
jet at PR=0.8 from the frontal aerodisk on spiked blunt body almost 86% of drag and 95% of
heat flux reduction can be achieved. In last, the successful numerical validation of
statistically predicted optimized passive and hybrid designs gives an ample proof for viability
and validity of Design of Experiment (DOE) and can be used for future endeavors.
