Low-Frequency Unsteadiness Mitigation through Control Bumps in Oblique Shock Wave/Boundary-Layer Interactions

Shock wave/boundary-layer interactions (SBLIs) represent a distinctive phenomenon in various high-speed aerodynamic scenarios. The collision of a shock with a boundary layer typically gives rise to significant flow separation, resulting in notable performance deterioration, induced structural vibrations and localized heat transfer peaks. The proposed research endeavors to initially characterize the frequencies and flow structures of supersonic oblique SBLIs in the absence of control mechanisms, followed by investigations into the effects of flow control devices, such as shock control bumps (SCBs), aimed at mitigating the adverse impacts of the interaction. We present our computational framework, which is based on the finite-difference approach for generalized curvilinear coordinates. The impact of the SCB on the interaction is analyzed by studying mean statistics profiles, wall pressure spectra, and flow separation characteristics. It is found that a convenient shape of the SCB can be adopted to almost completely cancel out the negative aspects of the baseline interaction. Two additional simulations were performed with the SCB shifted upstream and downstream of its nominal position to assess the robustness of the proposed control strategy. The results show that the downstream placement significantly worsens performance, while the upstream placement has similar benefits compared to the optimally placed SCB.