Numerical and experimental study of one blunt method for waverider configuration.

Waverider is considered to be an ideal configuration for hypersonic vehicles in the near-space, but due to the serious aero-heating and facture limitations, its infinite sharp leading edge should be blunted which would result in a remarkable loss of aerodynamic performance and have a great effect on the practical value of waverider configuration. In this paper, one blunt method is proposed based on the typical aero-heating characteristics of waverider. Furthermore, numerical technology is used to study the flow characteristics of blunt waverider, including the mechanism of bluntness impact and the feasibility of this new blunt method. An experiment has been done in FD-14A hypersonic shock wind tunnel to obtain the flow structure and heat flux distribution in the nose region of waverider model. The results show that bluntness induces a detached bow shock around the nose region and the phenomenon of spillage along the leading edge, which therefore results in an increment of drag and a reduction of lift and lift-to-drag ratio. However, the serious aero-heating is limited in the nose region for blunt waverider, smaller blunt radius can be used for most of the leading edge. Owing to the improvement of aerodynamic performance and negligible influence on thermal protection system, the blunt method proposed by the present paper is proved to be feasible for hypersonic waverider design. Under the studied conditions, the lift-to-drag ratio increases about 3.0%. If the blunt method is optimized, waverider configuration is still one of the most important candidates for hypersonic flight in the near-space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]