Abstract:
Enormous research has taken place in the recent year in order to reduce the
aerodynamic drag and heating resulting from high speed and shape of the blunt
cone for hypersonic vehicles. These still possess a great challenge in the design of
supersonic and hypersonic vehicles as the aerodynamic drag varies with velocity
as (𝑉∞)2, whereas the aerodynamic heating increases as(𝑉∞)3. The increase in
heating and drag associated with hypersonic speed had a significant impact on the
design of hypersonic space vehicle. Modifying the flowfield structure ahead of the
main body can result in substantial reduction both in aerodynamic drag and
heating. One such method is the use of spike; a passive flow control device.
Many researches in the past have addressed the reduction in drag and
aerodynamic heating with the use of spike. Most of the paper available in
published literature reports the effect of l/D ratios, but the effect of aero disk size
is not studied. It is obvious that size of aero disk significantly modifies the flow
field ahead of the blunt body and hence affects the aerodynamic parameters.
Therefore the aerodisk spikes can be regarded as a potential contestant for drag
reduction. The effect of spike length, nose configuration, aerodisk radius, and
effectiveness of the multidisc aerospikes by varying intermediate positioning of
the rearward aerodisk has been studied extensively in the current research.
