Numerical Study of Hypersonic Boundary-Layer Receptivity with Freestream Hotspot Perturbations

This paper presents a numerical-simulation study of transient flow over a blunt compression cone under the effect of freestream hotspot perturbations. This study is motivated by concurrent wind-tunnel laser-spot experiments carried out at Purdue University. The flow conditions used in the simulation are based on the experimental conditions. The simulation is performed using a high-order shock-fitting finite-difference scheme. The simulation results show that the hotspot is able to excite second-mode instability, where the instability growth is found to be dominant in the boundary layer. The receptivity mechanism is investigated by comparing the simulated results with linear-stability theory. Fast acoustic waves generated by hotspot–shock interaction excite the boundary-layer disturbances. Also, the synchronization of mode F and mode S leads to the dominance of boundary-layer disturbances by the growing second mode.