Numerical Study on Choked Flow over Grid-Fin Configurations

摘要

An improved configuration, which we term a swept-back grid fin, is proposed in the present study to reduce the detrimental effects of high drag caused by the flow choking within the transonic regime. Viscous computational fluid dynamics simulations were performed to investigate flows over a missile with baseline and swept-back grid fins under supersonic and transonic conditions at zero incidence. The computed drag coefficients for the baseline missile agree well with those in the literature. Our numerical results indicate that flow choking can be reduced by using the swept-back grid fin. As a result, the drag coefficient on the fins is decreased by approximately 13% for all the Mach numbers investigated in the present study.