Influence of vorticity on the heat transfer to blunt bodies in hypersonic flight

When blunt bodies are in hypersonic flight, a high-entropy layer of gas with nonzero vorticity is formed near their surface. The transverse gradients of the entropy, density, and gas velocity in the layer are high, which makes it necessary to take into account its absorption by the boundary layer of finite thickness . This vortex interaction is usually accompanied by an increase in the heat flux q and the frictional stress on the wall compared with their values as calculated in accordance with the classical scheme of a thin boundary layer, when the parameters on the outer edge of the boundary layer are set equal to the inviscid parameters on the body. This effect has been investigated on the side surface of slender (with angle 1 to the undisturbed flow) blunt bodies in a hypersonic stream [1–3]. It is shown in the present paper that the effect can have a stronger and even qualitative influence on the flow over blunt bodies with 1 if the radius of curvature R_s of the detached shock wave on the axis is small compared with the midsection radius R of the body. It is shown that the distributions of the heat fluxes with allowance for the vorticity of the inviscid shock layer are similar in the case of slightly blunt (r₀/R 0) cones with half-angles less than a critical _*.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 2, pp. 50–57, March–April, 1981.