Flow analysis and control in a subsonic inlet

S-duct inlets are commonly used on subsonic cruise missiles, as they offer a good compromise between compactness, low observability and aerodynamic performance. Though currently used S-ducts exhibit good performance in terms of distortion and pressure recovery at the AIP, the situation can degrade drastically when the inlet is put in off-design conditions, with the risk of compressor instabilities. Flow control is considered as a promising way to maintain inlet efficiency in off-design flight conditions. Industrial interest for flow control techniques is therefore rising, and a need for their comparative evaluation has been expressed. In response to this need, an experimental setup has been designed and fabricated, and flow control experiments have been carried out at MIT, on the selected off-design case of forebody boundary layer ingestion. The first set of experiments focused on the characterization of the inlet in a clean configuration. Then, a distortion device was added in order to simulate thick forebody boundary layer. This proved to have a strong detrimental effect on the inlet performance, as the separation bubble grew in size, the pressure recovery dropped down and the distortion level increased drastically. The selected flow control techniques were then implemented. .

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Tournier, Serge (Serge E.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• James D. Paduano.

• Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34135
• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Identifier URI

http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34135

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34135