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47th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting Including The New Horizons Forum and Aerospace Exposition AIAA 2009-1533

5 - 8 January 2009, Orlando, Florida

Drag Reduction of Blunt Body in a Supersonic Flow with Laser


Energy Depositions

Akihiro Sasoh, 1 Yohei Sekiya, 2 Takeharu Sakai, 3 Jae-Hyung Kim 4 and Atsushi Matsuda 5
Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan

Measurements of the drag over a flat-nosed cylinder with repetitive laser pulse
irradiations ahead of it were conducted in a Mach-2, in-draft wind tunnel. Laser pulses were
focused using a plane-convex lens fabricated on the nose of the cylinder at a repetition
frequency of up to 10 kHz and an effective power of 70 W at a maximum. The drag was
measured using a low-friction piston which was backed by a load cell in a cavity at a
controlled pressure. The measurement was so delicate that careful implementation was
necessary to accurately determine the amount of drag reduction. A drag reduction about 1.4
N which corresponds to an efficiency of energy deposition over 1400 % was obtained.

Nomenclature
A = projection area of cylinder body
D = cylinder diameter
F = force
f = laser pulse repetition frequency
L = distance between cylinder head and laser focus
P = pressure
P0 = atmospheric pressure
Psub = pressure in sub-chamber
t = time
W = time-averaged laser power
= fitting constant

I. Introduction

S UPER sonic drag is greatly originated in the momentum flux of mass-averaged particle flow. If the momentum
flux incident onto a body is decreased without an excess energy input, the drag can be efficiently reduced.
Mechanical methods of supersonic drag reduction, such as using a solid spike, cold/hot jet etc., have been
investigated for more than 40 years. In the past decade, aerodynamic performance modifications utilizing weakly
ionized gas has collected much attention, and related investigations have been reported in AIAA-related
conferences and elsewhere.1-11
Knight1 recently published a survey paper on this subject in Journal of Propulsion and Power, suggesting that
energy deposition over a body is characterized by a dimensionless energy deposited, pulse duration, and pulse
interval. The respective reference values need to be chosen in an appropriate manner. If the pulse interval is long
enough, resulting flow after a pulse energy deposition evolves in an independent manner from previous pulses.
Adelgen et al.6 conducted experimental study of laser pulse energy deposition over a sphere in a supersonic flow
with Mach number of 3.45. The flow was visualized by Schlieren method and local pressure histories were
measured using a piezo-resistive pressure transducer that was recess mounted in the sphere model. An energy was
deposited using a Nd:YAG laser pulse (wave length; 532nm, pulse duration; 10 ns, pulse energy; 12 to 300mJ). In
1
Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Associate Fellow.
2
Graduate student, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku.
3
Associate Professor Department of Aerospace Engineering, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Member AIAA.
4
Graduate student, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku.
5
Research Associate, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Member AIAA.
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Copyright 2009 by the authors. Published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., with permission.
the pressure history measured at the stagnation point, the pressure first overshot due to the incidence of a laser-
induced blast wave, then in a typical operation condition decreased down to about 60 % of the stagnation pressure
without energy deposition. The undershoot of the pressure is gradually recovered thereafter. Kandala and Candler10
and Zheltovodov et al.11 conducted numerical simulation of Adelgen et al.s experiment, thereby reproducing basic
characteristics of the pressure modulation at the stagnation point. Yet, only in the numerical simulation an overshoot
in the pressure appeared not only once but did couple of times. Sakai et al.9 conducted a similar experiment in an in-
draft wind tunnel with Mach number of 3.0, and measured the stagnation pressure history using a flush-mounted
piezoelectric pressure transducer, thereby obtaining pressure history which had plural pressure peaks as did in their
own numerical simulation.
Most of shapes so far examined were as simple as a cone, sphere, cylinder. With a blunt nose, the amount of drag
reduction is significant although the baseline drag, that is the one without energy depositions, is large. On the other
hand, a sharp nose like a cone has a small baseline drag, yet the impact of energy depositions is small. In order to
obtain the trade-off between the baseline drag and the impact of energy depositions, Sakai12 proposed the
combination of a truncated cone and energy pulse depositions. In his numerical simulation, the conditions that the
drag becomes smaller than that of a conical nose of the same apex angle and that the efficiency of energy
deposition1 exceeds unity were both satisfied. This promising result warrants further study of condition
optimization and experimental validation.
The key issue in this subject is to accurately measure drag reduction in experiment.5 Surface pressure
measurement on the body using pressure transducers has modest spatial resolution so that the drag which is obtained
by integrating the pressure with respect both to space and to time has poor accuracy. Moreover, if energy deposition
repetition frequency is high, the drag performance and associated flow are influenced by preceding pulses so that the
above-mentioned single pulse evaluation does not reflect those of repetitive pulse operation. If a large wind tunnel is
available for the present purpose, we can use a force balance presumably installed in the facility. However, usually
this kind of large facility is shared by many other users so that arrangement for energy pulse depositions is not
readily done within a given turnaround period. Numerical simulation has not necessarily been well matured so that it
can predict the amount of drag reduction accurately enough. This study aims in developing an experimental system
to measure a time-averaged drag with repetitive laser pulse energy depositions up to 10 kHz so that the drag
reduction due to energy deposition can be experimentally evaluated.

Fig. 1 Schematic illustration of in-draft wind tunnel.

Fig. 2 Test cylinder body and its housing for drag measurement.

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II. Apparatus

Figure 1 shows a schematic illustration of the in-draft wind tunnel developed in this study. The supersonic
nozzle is designed for a flow Mach number of 2.0 using a method of characteristics. Then, the correction against a
boundary layer is done through numerical simulation. Its test section has an 80 mm 80 mm square cross-section.
The frame of the wind tunnel is made of brass; the windows of acrylic. The intake of the wind tunnel is made of
brass, and has a 440 mm 440 mm square inlet cross-section. The nozzle, made of aluminum, is connected to a
vacuum chamber with an inner volume of 7 m2. Between the nozzle and the vacuum chamber, a pneumatic butterfly
valve is installed. Right downstream of the test section, the flow passage is enlarged so that instruments can fit to the
limited test section volume.
In the test section, a 20-mm-dia. cylindrical body is supported by a housing that is designed for the drag
measurement. The cylinder is held using two O-rings in the housing. The clearance between the cylinder body and
the housing is set to 500 m. In the room of the housing behind the cylinder body, a load cell (MR-50N-0418
Showa Measurement Instrument co.) is fabricated so that the force balance between the drag over the cylinder head
and the pneumatic force behind it is measured. The room is pneumatically isolated from the wind tunnel test section
by the O-ring (right one in Fig. 2), but is connected to a sub-chamber (inner volume; 0.018 m3) outside of the test
section. The pressure in the sub-chamber, Psub, is regulated to a constant value, and monitored using a
semiconductor pressure transducer (DG-920, Tokyo
Aircraft Instrument co.).
Figure 3 shows an example of variations in a
load cell signal and the corresponding force due to a
pressure difference over the cylinder body. First the
sub-chamber is evacuated to a sufficiently low
pressure. Then, Psub is increased step by step. When
the force balance is small, that is Psub is larger than
90 kPa, the friction force between the O-rings and
the housing wall is not negligible; the output signal
of the load cell does not have a linearity to the force
balance, ( P0 Psub ) A . However, when increasing
Psub in 40 kPa Psub 90kPa, the variation in the
force balance and the load cell output have a linear
relationship. Note here that this process is
irreversible. Once the sign of the force balance
variation is inverted, this linearity becomes violated
because the direction of the O-ring deformations
becomes inverted thereby producing a much
stronger friction force. Before measuring a drag in
wind tunnel operation, Psub is set first to an
appropriate value, for example, 40 kPa. Then, it is Fig. 3 Variation of load cell signal and force balance over
increased by 10 kPa. In the wind tunnel operation, the cylinder body, without wind tunnel operation.
the force balance becomes further decreased
because of a total pressure loss in the supersonic
flow. In this way, the drag measurement system is
set to have good friction condition before a wind tunnel run. This method is simple. However, careful treatment is
necessary in order to obtain both low friction and a constant sensitivity.
A highly-repetitive, Nd:YLF laser (wavelength; 1047nm, repetition frequency; 10 kHz max., average power;
80 W max.) is used for energy depositions, see Fig. 4. The output laser beam with a 5 mm 5 mm square cross-
section, is reflected against three 45-degree reflection mirrors for 1-m-wavelength before the wind tunnel, then sent
through a BK-7 window to the test section in the wind tunnel. Inside the cylinder body, the laser beam is reflected
on another 45-degree mirror and is transmitted through a plane-convex mirror with a focus length of 10 mm to 30
mm. The time-averaged laser power is measured using a power meter (F150A, Ophir). Form preliminary
measurement of the temporal laser power history using a photodiode, it turns out that a laser energy per pulse can
vary within a factor of about two. Therefore, data obtained in the experiment are carefully analyzed.
Framing Schlieren visualization is done using a high-speed framing camera (HPV-1, Shimadzu Co., 312 260
pixcels, 106 frame/s max., 100 frames). A xenon flush lamp (SA-200FNissin Electronic co., duration; 2ms)) is
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used as the light source. A pair of 300-mm-dia. concave mirrors (focal lengths; 1 m and 2 m) are used to obtain and
treat a collimated beam for the flow visualization through the test section. The output signals of the force sensor,
static pressure in the test section, the pressure in the sub-chamber and laser pulse irradiations are recorded in a
digital storage scope (DL750Yokogawa co.).

(a) Photograph around the test section with laser beam path

(b)Laser beam path in the test section

Fig. 4 Laser beam path and associated arrangements

III. Flow visualization

Figure 5 shows framing Schlieren images before(a) and after(b-p) the first laser pulse. (a) The test flow has
not experienced any laser pulse. In the steady-state supersonic flow, a bow shock is formed over the cylinder. Near
the wind tunnel walls, separation shock waves are observed. Since in the present study, a drag over only a flat nose
and the short side is measured, the separation shock wave does not affect the drag measurement. A curved shock
wave appears from the inlet of the housing. Because the flow is almost stagnated at the inlet, the pressure rise behind
this shock wave little affects the drag measurement. (b) A laser pulse is first irradiated. A sphere of laser-induced
plasma and shock wave are seen in front of the bow shock wave. Hereafter the laser-induced plasma will expand and
its temperature decreases. However, it will still recognizable as a low-density (high-temperature) region. Therefore,
it will hereafter be referred to as the laser-heated gas. (c) Due to convection, the sphere of the laser-heated gas has
approached closely to the bow shock. The laser-induced shock wave on the downstream side has already entered the
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bow shock layer. (d) The laser-heated gas has entered the bow shock layer. Due to the lens effect,1,6 the bow shock
wave extrudes upstream around the center axis. (e-m) In the shock layer, the laser-heated gas is recognized as a
region that has a bright contrast in the dark shock layer. (n-p) The laser-heated gas leaves past the peripheral of
the flat nose. The flow almost recovers to steady state without the pressure modulation.

a b c d

e f g h

i j k l

m n o p

Fig.5 Framing Schlieren images over single pulse irradiation, L/D=1.06, f=4kHz, W=48.4W, frame interval;16 s,
exposure; 2 s.

Figure 6 shows numerical simulation results corresponding to the condition of Fig. 5. The symbols below figures
correspond to a time in Fig. 5. (b) A new laser-heated gas sphere is formed upstream of the body. The flow incident
on the sphere is deflected around. (c) The laser-induced shock wave has penetrated in the bow shock layer. The
laser-heated gas barely stays upstream of it. (d) A toroidal vortex is formed due to the baroclinic interaction between
the bow shock layer and the laser-heated gas sphere over the flat nose on the center line.1,4,13 (g) The vortex torus
still stays over the nose, thereby the pressure on the nose remaining reduced. (k) The influence of the laser pulse
almost diminished. (b) Another cycle of flow modulation starts with a new energy deposition. In this case, the flow
field is not much influenced by the preceding energy depositions.

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0.02 0.02 0.02
0.76
0.76 0.76 0.7
0.68 0.68 0.64
0.6 0.6 0.58
0.01 0.52 0.01 0.52 0.01 0.52
0.44 0.44 0.46
0.36 0.36 0.4
0.28 0.28 0.34
0.2
r, m

r, m
r, m
0.2 0.28
0 0.12 0 0.12 0 0.22
0.04 0.04 0.16
0.1
0.04
-0.01 -0.01 -0.01

-0.02 -0.02 -0.02

-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02


x, m x, m x, m

0.02 0.02 0.02

0.01 0.01 0.01


r, m

r, m

r, m
0 0 0

-0.01 -0.01 -0.01

-0.02 -0.02 -0.02

-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02


x, m x, m x, m

b c d

0.02 0.02 0.02


0.76 0.76
0.7 0.76
0.7 0.68
0.64 0.64
0.58 0.6
0.58
0.01 0.52
0.01 0.52 0.01 0.52
0.46 0.44
0.46 0.36
0.4 0.4
0.34 0.28
0.34 0.2
r, m

r, m

r, m

0.28
0 0.28 0 0.22 0 0.12
0.22 0.04
0.16 0.16
0.1 0.1
0.04 0.04
-0.01 -0.01 -0.01

-0.02 -0.02 -0.02

-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02


x, m x, m x, m

0.02 0.02 0.02

0.01 0.01 0.01


r, m

r, m

r, m

0 0 0

-0.01 -0.01 -0.01

-0.02 -0.02 -0.02

-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02


x, m x, m x, m

g k b

Fig. 6 Numerical isopycnics (upper) and temporal streamlines (lower) under the same condition as of Fig. 5, the
symbol below each plot corresponds to the timing of the same symbol in Fig. 5.

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1 1 2 2

3 3 4 4

5 5 6

Fig. 7 Framing Schlieren images in five cycles, frame interval; 112s or 128s, in the same run as of Fig. 5.

Figure 7 shows framing Schlieren images visualized in the same run as of Fig. 5 but displays with much longer
frame intervals. The number without an apostrophe indicates the initiation period of the laser pulse irradiation of the
corresponding serial number. The number with an apostrophe correspond to the flow image 112 or 128 s after the
corresponding laser pulse irradiation. As seen in the figure, the diameters of the sphere have a large scatter. This
implies that the effective energy input in the gas noticeably scatters, too. Two causes are possible; first the output
energy from the laser varies within a factor of two at worst, second the disturbance over the bow shock layer
induced by the laser pulse irradiation can influence the laser beam optics so that the peak intensity around the focus
may not always be increased as is designed. Further investigations are necessary in order to clarify this tendency.

IV. Drag reduction characteristics


As was mentioned in Introduction, the primary objective of the present study is to demonstrate and evaluate the
drag reduction in a supersonic flow. Figure 8 shows an example of output signals of the load cell. The duration of
the laser pulse irradiations is indicated by an arrow. Before and after the laser pulse irradiations, the drag exhibits an
almost-steady-state value. During the irradiations, the drag is decreased by about 1.4 N. We are still examining the
accuracy of the drag measurement because the effect of the friction force on the drag measurement has not been
completely quantified. Yet, as is seen in Fig. 8, the drag reduction over the nose with repetitive laser pulse
irradiations has been demonstrated. If we accept our rough estimation, the efficiency of energy deposition, that is the
ratio between a decrement in necessary propulsion power to the incident laser power amounts to 14.1.

V. Summary
We have developed the experimental system to examine drag reduction performance with repetitive laser pulse
irradiations, and have demonstrated that the time-averaged drag over the cylinder nose is reduced. The accuracy of

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the measurement, in particular associated with the friction force between the cylinder body and the housing caused
by the O-rings is currently investigated so that the performance should be evaluated more accurately.

Fig. 8 Typical output of load cell, L/D=0.84, f=5kHz, W=53.2W.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express our gratitude to Technical Division, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya
University for their valuable technical assistances. This research was supported by Japan Society for Promotion of
Science as Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research, No. 19206089.

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2
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Adelgren, R. A., Yan, H., Elliott G. S., Knight D. D., Beutner T. J., and Zheltovodov, A. A., ``Control of Edney IV Interaction
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No.4, 1993, pp.568-574.
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Borzov V. Y.,Rybka I.V., and Yur'ev A. S., ``Effect of Local Energy Supply To a Hypersonic Flow On the Drag of Bodies With
Different Nose Bluntness,'' Journal of Engineering Physics and Thermophysics, Vol.67, Nos.5-6, 1994, pp.997-1002.
9
Sakai T., Sekiya Y., Mori K., and Sasoh A.,``Interaction Between Laser-Induced Plasma and Shock Wave Over a Blunt Body in
a supersonic flow,'' Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 222, Part G, Journal of Aerospace
Engineering, 2008, pp. 605-617.
10
Kandala, R. and Candler G. V., Numerical studies of laser induced energy deposition for supersonic flow control, AIAA J.
Vol. 42, No. 11, 2004, pp. 22662275.
11
Zheltovodov, A. A., Pimonov, E. A., and Knight D.D., ``Energy Deposition Influence on Supersonic Flow Over Axisymmetric
Bodies,'' AIAA Paper 2007-1230, January, 2007.
12
Sakai, T., Supersonic Drag Performance of Truncated Cones with Repetitive Energy Depositions, International Journal of
Aerospace Innovations, in press.
13
Sasoh, A, Ohtani, T., and Mori, K., Pressure Effects in a Shock-Wave-Plasma Interaction Induced by a Focused Laser Pulse,
Physical Review Letters, Vol.97, No.20, Art.No.205004, November 2006.
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