Detached-eddy simulation of supersonic flow past a spike-tipped blunt nose

Space vehicle in atmosphere travels mostly at supersonic speed and generates a very strong bow shockwave around its blunt nose. Oblique shock and conical separated flow zone generated by a forward disk-tip spike significantly reduce the drag by reducing the high pressure area on the blunt nose. This study employs improved delayed detached eddy simulation to investigate the characteristic flow structures around a spike-tipped blunt nose at Mach number of 3 and Reynolds number (based on the blunt-body diameter) of 2.72 × 108. The calculated time-averaged quantities agree well with experimental data. Characteristic frequencies in different flow regions are extracted using fast Fourier transform. It is found that two distinct instability modes exist: oscillation mode and pulsation mode. The former is related to the foreshock/turbulence interaction with non-dimensional frequency at around 0.004. The latter corresponds to the interaction between turbulence and shock structures around the blunt nose, with a typical coherent structure shedding frequency at 0.092.