A Quantitative Comparison of Delta Wing Vortices in the Near-Wake For Incompressible and Supersonic Free Streams

When requiring quantitative data on delta wing vortices for design purposes, low-speed results have often been extrapolated to configurations intended for supersonic operation. This practice stems from a lack of database in high-speed flows due to measurement difficulties. In the present paper an attempt is made to examine this practice by comparing data from an incompressible flow experiment designed specifically to correspond to an earlier experiment in supersonic flows. The comparison is made for a 75° sweptback delta wing at angles of attack of 7° and 12°. For the incompressible flow, detailed flow-field properties including vorticity and turbulence characteristics are obtained by hot-wire and pressure probe surveys. The results are compared, wherever possible, with available data from the earlier Mach 2.49 experiment. The results indicate that quantitative similarities exist in the distributions of total pressure and swirl velocities. Qualitative similarities also exist in other properties, however, many differences are observed. The vortex core is smaller and rounded at low speed. At high speed, it is elongated in the spanwise direction near the trailing edge but goes through “axis switching” within a short distance downstream. The vortex is located farther outboard, i.e., the spacing between the two legs of the vortex pair is larger, at low speed. The axial velocity distribution within the core is significantly different in the two flow regimes. A “jet-like” profile, observed at low speed, either disappears or becomes “wake-like” at high speed. The axial velocity characteristics are examined in the light of an analytical model.