CALCULATION OF FLOW FIELDS ABOUT BLUNT BODIES OF REVOLUTION TRAVELING AT ESCAPE VELOCITY

The method of Gravalos for calculating the inviscid flow about blunt supersonic bodies has been applied to the case of a hemisphere-cylinder at escape velocity. Numerical results are presented for the flow variables throughout the shock layer, both near the nose and downstream along the cylinder. The results are compared with data from six flow fields at lower velocities in order to illustrate the effects peculiar to escape-velocity re-entry. The body pressures and shock shapes computed by this method agree well with available experimental data at Mach numbers from 3 to 10, and are correlated fairly well by cylindrical blast-wave parameters.