Shock tunnel testing of a Mach 6 hypersonic

waverider

K. Hemanth, G. Jagadeesh, S. Saravanan, K. Nagashetty, and

K.P.J. Reddy

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, C. V. Raman Avenue,

Bangalore, 560012, India

Summary. A waverider is a lifting body configuration whose upper surface is parallel to the free
stream, and the lower surface aerodynamically so designed, that the resulting shock at the design
Mach number, is always attached with the leading edge of the vehicle. This prevents spillage
from high pressure (lower) surface to the low pressure (upper) surface.In the present study a
conical waverider has been designed, fabricated and tested at Mach 6 in the IISc hypersonic
shock tunnel HST2. The measurements show that the waverider has a lift to drag ratio of
4.28 at the designed Mach number. Exhaustive FEM and CFD studies are also carried out to
complement the force measurements in the tunnel.

1 Introduction
The maneuverability requirements of future hypersonic vehicles require aerodynamic con-
figuration which is capable of efficiently integrating non-circular airframes, lifting capa-
bilities and propulsion components in such a fashion so as to minimize the aerodynamic
heating and radar detectability. In this context the concept of waveriders cruising at hy-
personic speeds [1, 1] is very promising especially in the backdrop of availability of next
generation structural materials that can withstand very high temperatures.
A simple way to understand the concept of a waverider is to dichotomise its name-
WAVE + RIDER i.e. something that “rides” on a “wave”. To be more specific, a waverider
can be understood as a lifting body configuration comprising of two surfaces-upper and
lower. The upper surface is parallel to free stream and offers no obstruction to the flow
and hence the pressure on the upper surface is close to the free stream pressure. On the
other hand, the lower surface obstructs the flow and results in a shockwave. But the lower
surface is aerodynamically tailored, such that at the design Mach number, the resulting
shock coincides with the leading edge of the body (the edge formed by joining the upper
and lower surfaces) all along. In other words, the shock is attached to the leading edge
and the vehicle seems to be “riding its own shock wave”. This attached shock prevents
the spillage of flow from the high pressure side (lower surface) to the low pressure side
(upper surface) thereby resulting in very high Lift/Drag ratios which are necessary for
sustained hypersonic flight.
While considerable amount of research has gone into evolving techniques to design
waveriders, precious little information is available on their performance under hypersonic
speeds. Not many attempts measure the basic aerodynamic forces acting on the waverider
at hypersonic speeds and evaluate them. The objectives of the present study were as
follows: 1)To aerodynamically design a conically derived waverider for a nominal Mach
number of 6 from basic hypersonic conical flow principles. 2) To design, fabricate and
calibrate an internally mountable rubber based 3-component accelerometer force balance
and then obtain the performance characteristic of waverider in the IISc hypersonic shock
702 K. Hemanth et al.

tunnel (HST2) both at design (Mach 6) conditions. 3)To carry out FEM studies on
the model and the force balance by taking inputs from CFD to complement the force
measurements. 4)To carry out illustrative CFD studies on the designed waverider to
complement the experiments.The details of the experimental and theoretical studies are
described in the subsequent sections.

1.1 Experimental study

Based on the methodology suggested by Rasmussen [3] in the present study, a conical
waverider has been designed assuming inviscid flow past circular and elliptic cones using
analytical expressions to describe and characterize such flows. The conical waverider
(Fig. 2) has been designed for optimum performance at a free stream Mach number
of 6. Considering the advantages of cone-derived waveriders as listed in Broadway and
Rasmussen [4], it was decided to design a cone-derived waverider. The general sequence
followed in obtaining the aerodynamic shape of a waverider from a known flow field
involves the following steps: 1) Establish the flow fields i.e. flow past the cone at design
conditions; 2) Choose a stream surface in the flow; Step 3) Generate the surface which
is the intersection of the stream surface with the conical shock. Replace this portion of
stream surface by a solid surface which will be the lower surface of the vehicle; 4) Once
the lower surface is established, from the leading edge of the lower surface generate a
surface which is parallel to the free stream. This free stream surface will be the upper
surface of the vehicle. The logic of following the above sequence is that in any flow field,
a stream surface can be replaced by a solid surface. So when the chosen portion of the
stream surface is replaced by a solid surface, that surface will generate the exactly same
shock pattern which will then be coinciding with the leading edge of the surface all along.

Conical
shock
M
Free stream surface
(upper surface)

Stream Surface
(under surface)

Fig. 1. Schematic of the shock cone and stream surface (the flow generating cone is not shown)

Based on the aerodynamic design the waverider model (Fig. 2) is manufactured using
rapid prototyping and numerical machining techniques.The waverider model is about 180
mm long, 80 mm wide and the thickness of the model towards the base is 18 mm. The
model is attached to sting with a neoprene rubber bush (10 mm thick) to ensure that the
model will experience virtually unrestrained movement during shock tunnel testing.Once
we measure the model accelerations during hypersonic flow, and since we know the mass
of the model (89 gm) from Newtons law we can easily deduce the aerodynamic coeffi-
cients. Three accelerometers are mounted on the waverider to measure the drag, frontlift
and aftlift experienced by the model during hypersonic flow. Since the thickness of the
 Shock tunnel testing of waverider 703

Fig. 2. Isometric view of the hypersonic waverider model used in the present study

Table 1. Nominal Free stream conditions in HST2

Driver Gas Helium
Shock Mach number, Ms 3.78
Stagnation pressure, Po (kPa) 1250
Stagnation Temperature, To (K) 1628
Stagnation enthalpy, Ho (MJ/kg) 1.65
Freestream Mach number, M∞ 5.6
Freestream static pressure, P∞ (kPa) 1.17
Freestream static temperature, T∞ (K) 231
Free Stream Density, ρ∞ (kg/m3 ) 0.019
Freestream unit Reynolds number 2.2x106
(per meter)

waverider model is only about 18 mm and the minimum height of the accelerometers
(PCB-303A,PCB Piezotronics;10 mV/g)is about 12 mm it is really a challenge to mount
the accelerometers properly within the waverider model. Both CFD and FEM tools have
also been exhaustively used to design a rubber based accelerometer force balance sys-
tem used in the present study. The HST2 shock tunnel is capable of simulating Mach
numbers ranging from 3.5 to 13 and stagnation enthalpies ranging from 0.7 MJ/kg to
5 MJ/kg.The typical experimental conditions in the shock tunnel used for aerodynamic
force measurement of waverider are shown in Table 1.The measured acceleration sig-
nals are deconvolved to obtain the basic aerodynamic coefficients. Further finite element
modelling of the force balance system is carried out to complement the measurements.

1.2 FEM and CFD studies of the waverider

From the basic operation of the IISc shock tunnel, it is known that the conditions in the
test section start from the initial conditions and rise for about a period of 0.4 ms, after
which the conditions remain steady for a period of about 0.6 ms which is the window of
the test time. A similar transient loading is applied in the FEM analysis where the loads
are zero initially and rise to the steady state values over a period of 0.4 ms, after which
the loads remain constant for a period of 0.6 ms, the value of the loads being equal to
the aerodynamic loads as obtained from the steady state CFD analysis.The aerodynamic
loads on the waverider are chiefly the pressure loads. Though viscous effects result in shear
stresses, the high L/D of the waverider is primarily because of the pressure distribution
704 K. Hemanth et al.

on the upper and lower surfaces. Accordingly, the average values of pressure on the upper
and lower surfaces were calculated from the results of the CFD analysis. For the present
study, the FEM analysis was carried out using the commercial package MSC.NASTRAN
2004 (MSC Software). The geometry of the model including the rubber bush was built
in the CAD package AUTOCAD MECHANICAL DESKTOP 6. The geometry was then
imported into the pre-processing package MSC.PATRAN 2004 and the 3-d finite element
model of the waverider along with the rubber bush used in the analysis is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3. The typical mesh used in the finite element modelling of hypersonic waverider

The waverider part was assigned the properties of Duralumin and the rubber bush
was specified as an isotropic material with E = 3 MPa [5]. Four-node tetrahedral elements
were used to build the finite element model. The details are as follows: 1. Number of nodes
= 67222. Number of elements = 3395 Two types of loading were applied on the finite
element model: 1) Time varying pressure applied uniformly over both the upper and lower
surfaces 2) Displacement constraints on the hole in the rubber bush. Since the rubber
bush is rigidly bonded to the supporting sting which is held firmly, the displacements are
constrained to be zero in all the three directions at the central hole of the rubber bush.
The magnitudes of the pressures applied were: 1) 3045.2 Pa on the lower surface and 2)
1200.6 Pa on the upper surface. The nature of time variation of the applied pressures
was similar to the time history of the experimental conditions in the test section which
were determined from the pitot pressure history in the test section.
The typical experimental and FEM signals from the lift accelerometer along with the
acceleration history from the FEM studies is shown in Fig. 4.The typical signals obtained
from the drag accelerometer and the FEM results is shown in Fig. 5. Based on the results
from the force measurements in shock tunnel at designed conditions the waverider shows
a coefficient of drag of 0.0091 while the corresponding coefficients of lift and pitching
moments are 0.039 and 0.031. This shows the present waverider has a lift to drag ratio
of about 4.28.

Numerical Study

Illustrative numerical simulations are also carried out to complement the experiments
using CFX- Ansys software.The geometry of the model and the grid for the analysis
were generated using the commercial grid generation package ICEM-CFD (Ansys Inter-
national, USA). The boundary conditions were accordingly set as symmetric conditions
on this plane of symmetry. 3-D Navier Stokes equations were solved in the finite volume
 Shock tunnel testing of waverider 705

Fig. 4. Typical signal recorded by the front lift accelerometer along with the simulated signal
from FEM studies

Fig. 5. Typical signal recorded by the drag accelerometer along with the simulated signal from
FEM studies

formulation for the steady flow past the waverider. The density distribution along the
leading edge of the waverider obtained from CFD shown in Fig. 6 clearly shows that the
shock wave is attached all along the leading edge for the shock tunnel test flow condi-
tions at Mach 5.6 and this is consistent with the concept of waverider.The shock pattern
around the vehicle indeed confirms that the vehicle is a “Waverider”. This observation
is quite significant in the light of the fact that though the waverider was designed from
analytical solutions for inviscid conical flow, the behavior is not very different for flow
with viscosity.The basic aerodynamic coefficients obtained from the experiments along
with the results from the CFD studies are shown in Table 2.

Fig. 6. The density distribution on the IISc hypersonic waverider simulated from CFD studies
706 K. Hemanth et al.

Table 2. Aerodynamic coefficients from Experiments and CFD analysis

Aerodynamic coefficient Experiment CFD
Cl 0.039 0.032
Cd 0.0091 0.0077
Cm 0.031 -
L/D 4.28 4.15

2 Conclusions

A Mach 6 hypersonic conical waverider has been designed from basic conical flows, fabri-
cated and tested in the IISc hypersonic shock tunnel HST2. The basic aerodynamic forces
acting on the waverider is measured using rubber based accelerometer force balance. The
IISc waverider designed for nominal Mach number of 6 shows a lift to drag ratio of about
4.28. This is in agreement with the L/D ratios of conical waveriders reported in the open
literature. Both FEM and CFD studies are carried out to complement the experiments.
The agreement between experiments and CFD results is good. Future experimental cam-
paign aims at measuring the surface convective heating rates and the skin friction on the
waverider at both design and off-design hypersonic Mach numbers.

Acknowledgement. The authors would like to place on record sincere thanks to Aeronautical Re-
search and Development Board, New Delhi for sponsoring the research project on waveriders.We
also thank all the staff of HEA laboratory for the help during the experiments.

References
1. Kuchemann, D., and Weber, J: Progress in Aeronautical Sciences 9, (1968)
2. Townend, L., H.: Progress in Aeronautical Sciences 18, (1979)
3. Rasmussen, M.L.: Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 17, 6(1980)
4. Broadaway, R., Rasmussen, M.L.: Aerodynamics of a simple Cone Derived Waverider In:
AIAA Paper 84-0085, AIAA 22nd Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Nevada, Jan.1984.
5. Sahoo, N., Mahapatra, D., R., Jagadeesh, G., Gopalakrishnan, S., and Reddy, K., P., J:
Measurement Science Technology 14,(2003).