BASIC EXPERIMENT ON A SUPERSONIC VORTEX FLOW AROUND A MISSILE BODY

An experimental study of the flowfield around a three-caliber tangent ogive-cylinder body in a supersonic flow has been made to provide a consistent description of the flow. This experiment includes oil now visualizations, primary separation line determination, surface pressure measurements, and five-hole pressure probe surveys for a Mach number of 2 and an angle of attack varying from 0 to 20 deg. Results are obtained for a laminar boundary layer over the whole body and for triggered transition. At low-to-moderate incidence (up to 10 deg), the flow structure includes a primary and a secondary vortex. At higher incidences, a complex substructure is also present. The greatest differences occur between laminar boundary layer and turbulent flow cases: at alpha = 5 deg no separation exists in the turbulent case; at alpha = 10 deg, the primary separation appears farther in the leeward direction with smoother velocity gradients in the vortex structure for the turbulent case.