Duality of the Stream Pattern of Supersonic Viscous Gas Flow past a Blunt-Fin Junction: the Effect of a Low Sweep Angle

Abstract

The results of numerical solution of the problem of supersonic flow past a symmetric blunt fin mounted on a plate along which the boundary layer is developed are given. The initial formulation of the problem is based on the computational and experimental investigation by Tutty et al. (2013) in which the laminar flow regime was studied for the fin perpendicular to the plate at the free-stream Mach number equal to 6.7. Earlier, the authors have shown (2020) that under these conditions there exist two stable solutions of the problem. These solutions correspond to the metastable states of flow with different configurations of the vortex structure and different patterns of local heat transfer. In present study, the influence of a low sweep angle of the blunt leading edge on the vortex structure in the separation region, local heat transfer, and the possibility of obtaining a dual solution are investigated. The bifurcation diagrams that determine the location of the center of main horseshoe vortex in the plane of symmetry and the length of separation domain as a function of the skew angle are presented for two solutions.