Analytical and experimental studies of shock interference heating in hypersonic flows

An analytical and experimental study is presented of the aerodynamic heating resulting from six types of shock interference patterns encountered in high speed flow. Centerline measurements of pressure and heat transfer distributions on basic bodies were obtained in four wind tunnels for Mach numbers from 6 to 20, specific heat ratios from 1.27 to 1.67, and free stream Reynolds numbers from 3 million to 25.6 million per meter. Peak heating and peak pressures up to 17 and 7.5 times stagnation values, respectively, were measured. In general, results obtained from semiempirical methods developed for each of the six types of interference agreed with the experimental peaks.