Assessment on jet direction effect on drag and heat reduction efficiency for hypersonic vehicles

Abstract Introducing jet for drag reduction and thermal protection in hypersonic flows has attained worldwide attentions due to its giant potential, and this paper focused on the drag and heat reduction efficiency of unit mass flow rate for different jet directions in hypersonic flows. The developed code employed conjugate heat transfer approach to solve unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations and Fourier's heat conduction equation simultaneously, and then it was thoroughly validated by two classical experiments. Based on that, the flow field characteristics induced by different jet directions under the constant mass flow rate of jet were numerically investigated. Besides, two parameters were introduced to quantitatively evaluate the drag and heat reduction efficiency of different jet directions. The obtained results show that though the total mass flow rate of jet is constant, jet direction still has a decisive influence in manipulating the flow structures, and the rear jet would result in more complicated shock waves due to the interaction between the rear jet flow and spike. The force produced by the jet is the key role in determining the total drag, and the variation of pressure distribution along the blunt body is not the direct presentation of drag reduction performance. The opposing jet has the highest drag reduction efficiency, and lateral jet has the highest heat flux reduction. However, compared with the lateral and rear jets, the opposing jet has better thermal protection performance from the overall perspective as it can also protect the aerodome head from severe aerodynamic heating.