Analysis of Flow around Conical, Ogive Nose Cones in Hypersonic Space Shuttle

Abstract

Hypersonic flow is a high Mach number regime used to distinguish flow fields, phenomena and problems appearing at flight speed far greater than the speed of sound.  In high speed flows shock waves are formed during the flow. High speed flow have high energy level, thus dissipate large amount of heat, resulting in high temperatures, which may even burn the surface. The nose cone should be built with an outer surface which should be able to withstand high temperature generated by aerodynamic heating and the shape of the nose cone must also be chosen for minimum drag. In this project an attempt is made to calculate the flow around the nose cone of hypersonic space shuttle. The effect of shock waves on pressure, temperature and various other parameters are analyzed using DS2V software which is custom made to analyze this parameters. Optimization is also done for the best suited shape of nose cones for best suited hypersonic flight. After analyzing the parameters it is found that tangent Ogive nose cone shape is found to be the best suited shape for this particular flow pattern.

Keywords: Conical, Ogive, Hypersonic, Space Shuttle