Dynamic Transition From Regular to Mach Reflection Over a Moving Wedge

Abstract

The transition between the Regular Reflection (RR) and Mach Reflection (MR) phenomenon impacts the design of the supersonic and hypersonic air-breathing vehicles. The aim of this paper is to numerically investigate the dynamic transition from RR to MR of unsteady supersonic flow over a two-dimensional wedge, whose trailing edge moves along the x-direction upstream with a velocity, V(t) at a free-stream Mach number of M∞ = 3. The simulation is conducted using the unsteady compressible inviscid flow solver, which is implemented in OpenFOAM®, the open-source CFD tool. Further, the wedge motion is applied by moving the mesh boundary, performing the Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) technique. In addition, the sonic and the detachment criteria are used to define the dynamic transition from RR to MR during the increase of the wedge angle. Different reduced frequencies, κ, in the range of [0.1–2] for the moving wedge are applied to study the lag in the dynamic transition from the steady-state condition. The results show that the critical value of κ = 0.4 distinguishes between the rapid and gradual lag in the transition from RR to MR. In addition, the transition from RR to MR occurs above the Dual Solution Domain (DSD), since the shock is curved downstream during the rapid motion of the wedge.