Aerodynamic Analysis of a Hypersonic Space Shuttle with a Conical Aerospike

Alleviating the aerodynamic heating and drag is a major challenge in the design and development of vehicles travelling in hypersonic speeds. This paper computationally explores the possibility of introducing an aerospike ahead of such vehicles to passively attenuate the thermal and pressure loads that are inflicted due to the formation of a detached bow shock. A generic space shuttle design with a double-ellipsoid configuration was chosen for this study and a conical aerospike was attached to its stagnation point (at the vehicle’s nose). Steady RANS computations were performed at Mach 8 in Ansys FLUENT, using the k-omega SST turbulence model. In the presence of aerospike, the strong bow shock was replaced by relatively weaker conical shocks and a low-pressure recirculation zone was formed ahead of the body. The peak local heat flux was reduced by a maximum of 78%, denoting that the installation of the aerospike was extremely productive in mitigating the aero-thermal loads acting on the vehicle. On the other hand, the decrease in aerodynamic drag was not very significant (only about 3%), as the drop in pressure near the upper and lower meridians was largely compensated by the simultaneous increase around the side meridian.