Profiled-truncation technique for Busemann-traced compression fields

A novel technique using the streamline-tracing method via profiled truncation to balance a high-speed air intake's overall length and total pressure recovery has been developed and demonstrated numerically. This profiling prescribes an azimuthally dependent truncation angle distribution along the stream-traced leading edge, mitigating excessive length of the untruncated designs with minimal flow distortions and total pressure losses. A scoop-type design is chosen to examine the proposed technique with various correction methods applied to shorten the length while preserving flow characteristics. Diverse parameterizations of the truncation rate enable distinct wall profiles, leading to different characteristics. With inviscid analyses, the resulting flow fields show a similar static pressure rise at a 25% reduced length while reducing the total pressure recovery by only 3%. In viscous simulations, where the reductions in length and area are more critical, profile-truncated scoops yield even higher total pressure recovery by 26% to the untruncated baseline, with an increased mass capture rate by 1.6%. The resultant boundary-layer thickness and the effect of non-zero gradient in the circumferential direction are discussed to verify the proposed method.