Application of the Scaling Law for Swept Shock/Boundary-Layer Interactions

An experimental study providing additional knowledge of quasi-conical symmetry in swept shock wave/turbulent boundary-layer interactions is described. When a turbulent boundary layer on the flat plate is subjected to interact with a swept planar shock wave, the interaction flowfield far from fin leading edge has a nature of conical symmetry, which topological features of the interaction flow appear to emanate from a virtual conical origin. Surface streakline patterns obtained from the kerosene-lampblack tracings have been utilized to obtain representative surface features of the flow, including the location of the virtual conical origin. The scaling law for the sharp-fin interactions suggested by previous investigators has been reexamined for different freestream Mach numbers. It is noticed that the scaling law reasonably agrees with the present experimental data, however, that the law is not appropriate to estimate the location of the virtual conical origin. Further knowledge of the correlation for the virtual conical origin has thus been proposed.