Flow Field Study of Mixed Compression Supersonic Air Intake with Cowl Ventilation

The present investigation is focused on the effect of cowl porosity on the performance of supersonic mixed compression air intake. Four different cases (namely 4.4 %, 5 %, 5.5 % and 7.2% of total cowl area) of cowl porosity at three contraction ratios of air intake have been studied. The pattern of the cowl porosity (Square shape) is chosen symmetrically along the span in the longitudinal direction from the cowl tip. Commercially available software Ansys is used in the computational studies to solve the RANS equations with the k-ω STD turbulence model. Various performance parameters of supersonic air intake are obtained and discussed. Excess amount of flow spillage appears near the cowl tip, which is responsible for the standing strong bow shock wave just before the throat for the uncontrolled case (Clean Model). The minimum energy losses and starting behavior of supersonic air intake are captured at 7.2 % cowl porosity for the contraction ratio of 1.25, which reveals the overall improvement in the flow physics and performance parameters. An increase of 32.73 % in the total pressure recovery is observed for 7.2 % cowl porosity at design contraction ratio of 1.25. All the simulations are performed at three contraction ratios of 1.22, 1.25 & 1.31.