Shock Waves (2002) 12: 197–204

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) 10.1007/s00193-002-0160-3

Shock tunnel study of spiked aerodynamic bodies flying

at hypersonic Mach numbers
Viren Menezes, S. Saravanan, K.P.J. Reddy
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore-560 012, India

Received 12 December 2001 / Accepted 20 May 2002

c Springer-Verlag 2002
Published online 1 October 2002 –

Abstract. A three-component accelerometer balance system is used to study the drag reduction effect of an
aerodisc on large angle blunt cones flying at hypersonic Mach numbers. Measurements in a hypersonic shock
tunnel at a freestream Mach number of 5.75 indicate more than 50% reduction in the drag coefficient for a
120◦ apex angle blunt cone with a forward facing aerospike having a flat faced aerodisc at moderate angles
of attack. Enhancement of drag has been observed for higher angles of attack due to the impingement
of the flow separation shock on the windward side of the cone. The flowfields around the large angle
blunt cone with aerospike assembly flying at hypersonic Mach numbers are also simulated numerically
using a commercial CFD code. The pressure and density levels on the model surface, which is under the
aerodynamic shadow of the flat disc tipped spike, are found very low and a drag reduction of 64.34% has
been deduced numerically.

Key words: Drag reduction, Spike, Large angle blunt cone, Hypersonic shock tunnel, Accelerometer force
balance

1 Introduction

The aerodynamic drag induced by a strong shock wave in

front of the flight vehicle and the surface heating due to
the deceleration of the flow behind the shock wave are two
major problems of hypersonic flight (Anderson, 1989). In
order to minimize the heating problem, which dominates
during the re-entry phase of the flight, it is essential to use
a body whose nose radius and hence the drag coefficient
are high. On the other hand for flight through the atmo-
sphere during take-off it is advantageous to have a body
with low drag coefficient to minimize the thrust required
from the propulsive system. Hence for hypersonic vehicles
using blunt bodies, there is always an engineering trade-
off between desirable thermal protection system and the
very high wave drag associated with shock wave forma- Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the flow field pattern around a
tion on such bodies. However, these conflicting demands blunt body with aerodisc flying at hypersonic Mach number
can be met by equipping the blunt nose hypersonic flight
vehicles with some form of variable drag device (Crawford,
1959). The advantages of drag reduction are to reduce the may benefit from the drag reduction include the sustained
propulsion system requirement and fuel consumption, im- cruise supersonic and hypersonic transport, military mis-
prove structural integrity and increase the payloads with siles and single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicles.
smaller take-off gross weight. Some of the missions that Modifying the flow field in front of the body can mini-
mize the problems of excessive surface heating and higher
Correspondence to: K.P.J. Reddy wave drag. Therefore, many alternative techniques have
(e-mail: laser@aero.iisc.ernet.in) been proposed to modify the flowfields ahead of the hy-
An abridged version of this paper was presented at the 23rd personic flight vehicles. These techniques include deposi-
Int. Symposium on Shock Waves at Fort Worth, Texas, from tion of energy in front of the body by focusing either laser
July 22 to 27, 2001 or microwave beams (Riggins et al. 1999), directing gas
198 V. Menezes et al.: Spiked hypersonic aerodynamic bodies
jets (either chemically reacting or non-reacting) into the
freestream (McMahon 1959; Meyer et al. 2001), energy
deposition using a plasma torch (Marsh et al. 1996) or
arc discharge (Minucci et al. 2000), fixing an aerospike ex-
tending forward from the blunt body nose (Bogdonoff and
Vas, 1959) and using a dc corona discharge (Khabiry and
Colver, 1997). Of all these techniques of drag reduction,
application of forward facing aerospike conceived in 1950s
is an effective and simpler technique to reduce the drag as
well as the heat transfer rate for blunt nosed bodies flying
at hypersonic Mach numbers.
Many efforts have been reported to analyze the flow-
fields generated by the aerospike and to predict its effec-
tiveness as a drag-reducing device (Maull, 1960; Wood,
1961; Thurman, 1964; Reding et al. 1977; Hutt and Howe,
1989; Huebner et al. 1995; Sakagoshi et al. 2000; Gnemmi
et al. 2001). For an axisymmetric body the spike generates
a conical oblique shock wave, which encompasses the body
and creates a conical region of re-circulating flow in front
of the body that shields and protects it from the oncom-
ing freestream flow. This induces more than 50% reduction
in the pressure drag, as the detached normal shock wave
associated with a blunt body is no longer present. The
salient features of the flowfields around the body with a
forward facing disc headed aerospike traveling at hyper-
sonic Mach numbers is shown schematically in Fig. 1. The
blunt body flowfield pattern has been modified into a con-
ical flow pattern with the bow shock wave being pushed
far away from the body. Length of the spike and the disc
diameter are adjusted such that the flow re-attachment
zone gets shifted off the body.
Most of the aerospike induced drag reduction studies
reported in the literature have been carried out in long
duration wind tunnels where the flow Reynolds numbers
are moderate and more importantly the drag coefficient is
deduced from the pressure measurements over the body
surface. In this paper we present a systematic study of
the effectiveness of an aerospike as a drag-reducing device
at reasonably high Reynolds numbers generated in a hy-
personic shock tunnel at Mach 5.75. The drag coefficient
is directly measured using a three-component accelerom-
eter balance system. The measured values are compared
with the numerical values predicted using a commercial
CFD code. This study indicates drag reduction of more
than 50% for a 120o apex angle blunt cone at low angles
of attack. The effectiveness of aerodisc attached to the
tip of the aerospike is also evaluated with different disk
geometries.
2 Test facility and model configuration
The experiments have been carried out in hypersonic
shock tunnel HST2, which is a modified version of HST1
(Reddy et al. 1996), shown schematically in Fig. 2. The
shock tube portion of HST2 consists of a 50mm diame-
ter stainless steel tube, which is divided into driver and
driven sections. The driver and driven sections are sepa-
rated by a 1 to 1.5 mm thick aluminum diaphragm. Two
ports separated by a distance of 52.5 cm are located at the
end of the driven section of the shock tube to install the
sensors for measuring the shock speed. The speed of the
shock wave is measured using platinum thin film thermal
sensors inserted in these ports. The pressure jump across
the primary and the reflected shock waves is measured
using a pressure transducer (PCB, Piezotronics) located
at the end of the driven section. The wind tunnel por-
tion of the HST2 shock tunnel consists of a conical noz-
zle terminating into a 30 cm × 30 cm size test section,
which is attached to a dump tank of 1m3 volume. The
wind tunnel section is evacuated to vacuum levels of the
order of 10−3 mbar before every run using a rotary-roots
pump combination. A truncated conical nozzle with an
entry diameter of 50 mm and an exit diameter of 300 mm
yields a flow Mach number of 5.75 in the test section when
the tunnel is operated in the straight through mode. The
conical nozzle is 600 mm long with a cone angle of 10◦ .
The tunnel is capable of producing a reservoir enthalpy
of up to 5 MJ/kg and has an effective test time of about
800 µs. A transient data acquisition system consisting of
twelve independent data recording channels, installed as a
PC/AT add-on card working on DOS platform has been
used for recording the data. Each channel has an ampli-
fier, 10 MHz Flashtype ADC, 32 K memory and control
circuitry for trigger and timing along with the necessary
software. The control software is provided with graphical
interface screen.
The test model of 100 mm base diameter is a 120◦ apex
angle blunt cone with a forward facing aerospike having
a flat aerodisc attached to its tip, as shown in Fig. 3.
Different spike lengths and aerodisc geometries have been
tested, but here we present the detailed results for single
spike length with a flat-faced aerodisc. The spike length
to model base diameter ratio has been set at 1. The aero-
dynamic forces on the model are measured using a three-
component accelerometer balance system (Reddy, 1983).
A rear skirt is added to the model in order to house the
balance system. However, the rear skirt has no contribu-
tion to the aerodynamics of the model since it gets sub-
merged in the separated flow behind the blunt cone. The
model is attached to a central sting of the balance using
rubber bushes, as shown in Fig. 3. During the short run
times in the shock tunnel, the model along with the ac-
celerometers moves as a free body and the resulting accel-
erations in the vertical and axial directions are measured
from the outputs of the corresponding accelerometers. The
axial force C(t) and normal force N (t) on the model are
calculated using the measured accelerations from the fol-
lowing equations (Reddy 1983):
C (t) = [w/g] ξ3 (1)


w/g
N (t) = (bξ1 + aξ2 ) (2)
a+b
where, ξ1 , ξ2 and ξ3 are the measured accelerations, a and
b are the locations of the accelerometers from the centre
of gravity of the model and w is the weight of the model.
The aerodynamic drag coefficient Cd and lift coefficient
 V. Menezes et al.: Spiked hypersonic aerodynamic bodies 199

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the HST2

hypersonic shock tunnel

Fig. 3. Schematic of the 120◦ apex an-

gle blunt cone model with an aerodisc,
fitted with a three component ac-
celerometer balance system

CL are computed using the relations, adiabatic. Finally, symmetry planes are used in the flow
    domain surrounding the model so as to simulate axisym-
C(t) N (t) metric flow situation.
Cd = cos α + sin α (3)
(q∞ S) (q∞ S)
   
N (t) C(t)
CL = cos α − sin α (4) 3 Results and discussion
(q∞ S) (q∞ S)
where q∞ is the freestream dynamic pressure, S is the The results presented in this paper are from the measure-
reference area and α is the angle of attack. ments that have been carried out at a freestream Mach
The flowfields around the spiked body configura- number of 5.75 with helium and nitrogen as driver gases
tion have been computed numerically using a three- and air as the test gas. The duration of the steady flow is
dimensional N-S solver CFX-TASCflow (AEA Technology, about 800 µs. Variation of the drag coefficient as a func-
plc, UK) for an axisymmetric case (Jagadeesh et al. 1999; tion of angle of attack is measured by fixing the model
Gnemmi et al. 2001). This code solves the Navier-Stokes at the required angle using a special sting arrangement in
equations in the conservative form. The boundary condi- the dump tank. The measured values of drag coefficient
tions used are the values obtained from the shock tunnel for different angles of attack are shown in Fig. 4 for large
runs. At the outlet of the computational domain, all vari- angle blunt nosed body with and without drag reduction
ables are extrapolated from the interior domain. No-slip device. The specific enthalpy and the unit Reynolds num-
condition is used at the wall and also the wall is treated as ber for the flow are 1.2 MJ/kg and 1.5 × 106 /m, respec-
200 V. Menezes et al.: Spiked hypersonic aerodynamic bodies

2 60

1.8
50

1.6
40

1.4

Drag reduction [%]

30
1.2

20
Cd

0.8 10

0.6
0

0.4 Model without spike

−10 Specific enthalpy "1.2MJ/kg"
Model with flat aerodisc
0.2 Specific enthalpy "0.7MJ/kg"

−20
0 3 6 9 12 15
0
0 3 6 9 12 15
A. O. A [deg.]
A. O. A [deg.]

Fig. 4. Variation of drag coefficient with angle of attack for
a 120◦ apex angle blunt nosed cone model with and with-
out aerodisc (specific enthalpy = 1.2 MJ/kg and free stream
Reynolds no. =1.5 × 106 /m)
2
Fig. 6. Variation of drag reduction with angle of attack for a
120◦ blunt nosed cone model with aerodisc
a step at the end of the blunt cone (Anderson, 1989). The
step causes the flow to separate behind itself and hence
the entire aft body is submerged in the separated bubble,

1.8 being completely out of contact of the main flow even at

an angle of attack of 12◦ . So the effective body that con-
1.6
tributes to aerodynamics is only the front blunt cone and
1.4 is non-lifting in nature. The variation of drag coefficient for
the blunt body with and without aerospike assembly flying
1.2
at hypersonic Mach number with a specific flow enthalpy
of 0.7 MJ/kg and unit Reynolds number of 1.1 × 106 /m
Cd

1
is shown in Fig. 5. The trend of the drag reduction varia-
0.8 tion is identical to the variation shown in Fig. 4. The drag
coefficient for the model for lower unit Reynolds number
has been found slightly higher up to 7◦ angle of attack.
0.6

0.4 Model without spike The percentage of the drag reduction by the aerospike
Model with flat aerodisc assembly is estimated by using the equation (Cd –
0.2
Cd−spike )/Cd , where Cd is the drag coefficient of the large
0 angle blunt body without spike and Cd−spike is that of
the body with the spike. The variation of the percentage
0 3 6 9 12 15

A. O. A [deg.]
Fig. 5. Variation of drag coefficient with angle of attack for
a 120◦ apex angle blunt nosed cone model with and with-
out aerodisc (specific enthalpy = 0.7 MJ/kg and free stream
Reynolds no. =1.1 × 106 /m)
tively. It is seen that at lower angles of attack the reduc-
tion in drag obtained by deploying an aerospike with a flat
aerodisc assembly on the nose of the body is more than
50%. As the angle of attack is increased, the effective-
ness of the aerospike assembly as a drag reduction device
reduces drastically and it acts as an additional drag gen-
eration device beyond 9o angle of attack. Also it is seen
that the drag curve for the body without spike droops
downwards as the angle of attack is increased. This may
be attributed to a larger surface area of the blunt cone on
the leeward side being under expansion at higher angles
of attack. Similar trend has been reported by Intrieri and
Kirk (1987). As mentioned before, the rear skirt is totally
hidden from the impact of the flow due to the existence of
of drag reduction as a function of angle of attack for two
specific enthalpies is shown in Fig. 6. The percentage of
drag reduction decreases monotonically with increase in
the angle of attack. At around 5 to 7◦ angle of attack, the
percentage of drag reduction is comparatively better for
lower specific enthalpy but this is reversed at 10◦ angle of
attack.
The flow fields around the large angle blunt cone with
and without aerospike flying at hypersonic Mach numbers
are computed numerically by specifying the freestream ve-
locity, static pressure and static temperatures at the in-
let of the computational domain. Typical values used are
the flow velocity of 1400 m/s, static pressure of 410 Pa
and static temperature of 130 K. These are the typical
freestream conditions obtained in HST2 for helium driven
runs. The blunt nosed cone geometry of the model tested
here normally supports a strong curved bow shock wave at
hypersonic Mach numbers as shown in Fig. 7. The strong
shock wave generates high pressures over the surface of
the model as shown in Fig. 8, which will in turn lead to
 V. Menezes et al.: Spiked hypersonic aerodynamic bodies 201

Fig. 7. Numerically computed Mach number distribution around a 120◦ blunt nosed cone model flying at hypersonic Mach
number

Fig. 8. Numerically computed pressure distribution around a 120◦ blunt nosed cone model flying at hypersonic Mach number
202 V. Menezes et al.: Spiked hypersonic aerodynamic bodies

Fig. 9. Numerically computed Mach number distribution around a 120◦ blunt nosed cone with a flat-faced aerodisc, flying at
hypersonic Mach number

Fig. 10. Numerically computed density distribution around a 120◦ blunt nosed cone with a flat-faced aerodisc, flying at
hypersonic Mach number
 V. Menezes et al.: Spiked hypersonic aerodynamic bodies 203

Fig. 11. Numerically computed pressure distribution around a 120◦ blunt nosed cone with a flat-faced aerodisc, flying at
hypersonic Mach number

the high values of drag characteristic of the blunt cones Table 1. Experimental and computed values of drag coefficient
flying at hypersonic Mach numbers. at zero degree angle of attack and total enthalpy of 1.2MJ/kg
With spike deployment, the boundary layer growth for 120◦ apex angle blunt cone
along the spike will be subjected to a strong adverse pres- Cd Blunt cone Blunt cone
sure gradient because of the aerodisc shock wave, shown without spike with flat disc
in Fig. 9, as well as the presence of a large blunt body in tipped spike
the stream. This will cause the spike boundary layer to Experimental 1.462 0.6734
separate along the spike surface and also on the face of Numerical (CFX) 1.374 0.49
the vehicle. For a properly adjusted spike length, the flow Modified Newtonian theory 1.438 –
re-attachment point can totally be shifted off the body
for lower angles of attack, as shown in Fig. 10, thereby
creating flow separation all over the face of the model. higher angles of attack, the spiked blunt cone generates
This separated flow is a region of flow reversal and low sufficient aft lift due to the re-attachment phenomenon
pressure, as shown in Fig. 11. Due to this low pressure, explained above.
the axial force on the body reduces and so is the drag. A
drag reduction of 64% has been indicated by the numeri-
cal simulations in this case. A comparison of experimental
and simulated/theoretical Cd values for the model at zero 4 Conclusions
degree angle of incidence is shown in Table 1.
At higher angles of attack of the spiked body, the Reduction of aerodynamic wave drag for a large angle
flow separation shock originating at the point of separa- blunt cone using a forward facing aerospike with a flat-
tion may impinge at some point on the windward side faced aerodisc assembly is investigated both experimen-
of the blunt cone and the flow re-attachment zone will tally and numerically. More than 50% drag reduction for
be shifted to that point on the body with an attendant a 120◦ apex angle blunt cone at flight Mach number of 5.75
re-attachment shock. This re-attachment zone is a region is measured in a hypersonic shock tunnel for moderate an-
of very high pressure and temperature. The region beyond gles of attack. Numerical simulations clearly demonstrate
this re-attachment point will comparatively be at a higher the reduction of surface pressure over the model due to
pressure and temperature owing to which the drag on the the presence of the aerospike assembly, which leads to a
spiked body increases. It has also been observed that at computed reduction of about 64% in the wave drag at a
flow Mach number of 5.75. Enhancement of drag has been
204 V. Menezes et al.: Spiked hypersonic aerodynamic bodies

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