Preliminary Investigation of Use of Conical Flow Separation for Efficient Supersonic Diffusion

Use of flow separation on a rod projecting upstream of a blunt body to decelerate the supersonic stream ahead of an annular nose inlet was investigated at Mach numbers of 1.76, 1.93, and 2.10. Maximum pressure recoveries were obtained with rod tip projections about 1.5 times the radius of the spherical nose and were higher than those obtained with single-shock solid cones. Subcritical operation was similar to that observed with solid-cone inlets, but the effect of angle of attack on maximum pressure recovery was more severe.