Peak heating for reattachment of separated flow on a spiked blunt-body

A forward facing spike attached to a hemisphere-cylinder reduces the aerodynamic drag and the heat flux at supersonic and hypersonic Mach numbers. A numerical simulation is carried out to examine the effects of freestream Mach number on the flowfield and the heat transfer over the spiked blunt-body. Axisymmetric compressible Navier–Stokes equations are solved using a finite volume discretization in conjunction with a multistage Runge–Kutta time stepping method. Lengths of the separated region on the spike are influenced by the freestream Mach number. The computed results show that the peak heat flux on the nose of the blunt-body is also influenced by the freestream Mach number. The peak pressure and the wall heat flux on the blunt-body increases with increasing freestream Mach number. The computed results are reasonable in agreement with experimental data from the literature. Received on 1 July 1999