Structure of Shock Waves in Cylindrical Ducts

Abstract

Wall static and in-stream phot pressure distributions are presented for confined, nonreacting, supersonic flows in cylindrical sections wherein a shock structure has been stabilized. Based on an analysis of these measurements, the character of the wave structure is shown to be oblique rather than normal, with the flow remaining primarily supersonic downstream of the shock system. When additional cylindrical sections are either added or deleted the shock structure is, with the exception of slight changes due to the different initial conditions, independent of location in the duct. The parameters which govern the distance st, over which the pressure rise is spread, viz., Mach number, momentum thickness Reynolds number, duct diameter, and the momentum thickness of the upstream boundary layer, were varied as follows: 1.53 ^ Ma ^ 2.72, 5 x 10 ^ Ree ^ 6 x 10, 1.0 D 6.1 in., and 0.007 ^ 6 ^ 0.036 in. In each test the wave structure was generated by either lowering the pressure in the air supply system so that the cylindrical duct was, in effect, overexpanded when discharging to ambient conditions, or by throttling the flow leaving the duct. For a given pressure ratio across the disturbance, Pf/pa, st varies approximately directly with the product 0D and inversely with (Ma — l)Re0. A simple quadratic expression is presented which adequately represents this corespondence for the complete range of conditions tested and for data from the cited reference.