Unsteady low Reynolds number shock boundary layer interactions

Abstract

Finite element methods were used to perform an investigation of the interaction between a reflected shock wave and a low Reynolds number laminar boundary layer in Mach 2 flow. The finite element scheme makes use of the time-accurate flux-corrected transport technique and a fully unstructured mesh, which is adaptive to both viscous and gasdynamic effects. A boundary layer transformation was employed to eliminate both the upstream pressure gradient and resolution issues of the leading edge flow. Shock wave/boundary layer interactions were simulated for four different shock intersection Reynolds numbers: 600, 2400, 9600, and 24 000. While significant amounts of flow separation were found for all Reynolds numbers, the character and size of the separated region varied significantly. It was also noted that separation bubble lengths when normalized by the distance from the leading edge to the shock intersection point decreased as the Reynolds number increased for the conditions considered herein. However, the most interesting observation was the inherent unsteadiness found for the higher Reynolds numbers. This led to separation bubble instability and vortex shedding for the two highest Reynolds number cases. The results indicated a natural shedding frequency of 1.3 based on ambient velocity and primary separation bubble length for these two cases.