A numerical simulation of two-dimensional inlet flow fields

Inlet flow fields for airbreathing missiles are calculated by the adaptation of a two-dimensional computational method developed for the flow around airfoils. A supersonic free stream is assumed to allow the forebody calculation to be uncoupled from the inlet calculation. The inlet calculation employs an implicit, time-marching finite-difference procedure to solve the thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations formulated in body-fitted coordinates. Because the method can be used for a flow field with both subsonic and supersonic regions, it is applicable to subcritical as well as supercritical inlet operation.