Identification of traveling crossflow waves under real hypersonic flight conditions

Understanding crossflow instabilities in three-dimensional boundary layers triggered by either traveling crossflow waves or stationary crossflow vortices is of great importance for modeling, predicting, and controlling hypersonic laminar-turbulent transition. However, due to very limited available flight experiment data, the crossflow instability under real flight conditions is still far from fully understood. To gain further insight, the raw data of a recent model flight experiment conducted by China Aerodynamics Research and Development Center have been thoroughly analyzed in the present study. The instrumented model is an inclined blunt cone mounted with several pressure sensors. Distinct low-frequency signals detected by these pressure sensors are peaked at about 10kHz, which are in good agreement with the traveling-crossflow-wave frequencies with the largest N factors predicted by the eN method. Moreover, propagation velocities and wave angles of these signals obtained from correlation analysis also agree with the results from linear stability theory. The present study confirms that the detected low-frequency signals are traveling crossflow waves and provides the first evidence of traveling crossflow waves under real flight conditions.

Automated summary

This study confirms the presence of traveling crossflow waves under real flight conditions by analyzing raw data from a model flight experiment, with the signals detected being in good agreement with predictions based on linear stability theory.