Numerical Study of Flow Angles and Mach Number Measurement Using the Surface Pressure of a Supersonic Aircraft with Nose Cone

Numerical simulation of the flow around an air data sensor (ADS), which measures flow angles and Mach numbers using surface pressures on a nose cone, was conducted in this study. Effects of the half-cone angle on the flow angle and Mach number measurements were investigated. Results show that a large half-cone angle achieves high sensitivity of flow angle measurements. Results further demonstrated that a small half-cone angle achieves high-sensitivity of Mach number measurements. To satisfy these conflicting requests, we proposed the use of bi-conic nose cones with two gradients. High sensitivity was achieved for both flow angle measurements and Mach number measurements using this bi-conic nose cone.