Computational study on the detachment and attachment phenomena of shock waves

Abstract

The detachment of attached shock waves and the attachment of detached shock waves frequently occur for various supersonic air vehicles. The transitional boundary plays a crucial role in clarifying the detachment and attachment processes of shock waves, which are always accompanied by remarkable aerodynamic characteristic differentials. In this work, a computational study is performed to investigate the detachment and attachment conditions of shock waves for profound understanding of the shock wave dynamics. The result of computational fluid dynamics is validated against existing experimental data in the open literature. An excellent match is obtained using the shear stress transport k-omega turbulence model. From the theoretical analysis, attached shock waves can transform into detached shock waves abruptly and vice versa. Realistic transitional regions with a certain range are numerically established. The differences in the detachment and attachment phenomena of shock waves are produced as a hysteresis process.