Hypersonic laminar-turbulent transition on circular cones and scrarajet forebodies

Laminar-turbulent transition in hypersonic boundary layers has a dramatic effect on heat transfer, skin friction, and separation. This effect is critical to reentry vehicles and airbreathing cruise vehicles, yet the physics of the transition process is not yet well enough understood to be used for predictive purposes. The literature for transition on circular cones and scramjet forebodies is reviewed, from an experimental point of view. Ground experiments, emphasized here, nearly always suffer from ambiguity caused by operating in the presence of high levels of facility noise. Measurements of the instabilities leading to transition reduce much of this ambiguity, and thus these instability measurements are emphasized. A number of transition measurements have also provided good control of extraneous effects, and several of these measurements are compared in detail. Small bluntness always delays transition on smooth cones at zero angle of attack (AOA), while large bluntness creates a change in mechanism that again moves transition forwards. For smooth cones at AOA with small or negligible bluntness, transition is always leeside-forward and windside-aft, although the movement with AOA is tunnel and geometry dependent. For cones with large bluntness, transition becomes windside forward and leeside aft. In both cases, nosetip roughness may be involved in the trend reversal. Reliable prediction of the trend reversal conditions is one of many topics requiring additional research. The limited existing database for transition on scramjet-vehicle forebodies is also reviewed, along with the literature for transition in the compression corners that are often a part of such forebody designs. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.