Simulations of an aeroelastic control system for shock/boundary layer interactions

A study has been performed using a computational fluid dynamic code that examines the interaction of an oblique shock wave with a surface boundary layer. Control of the inevitable losses in the shock wave/boundary layer interaction may be achieved by using a system of deformable thin flaps covering a cavity located in the vicinity of the incident oblique shock wave. The flaps will deflect either upwards into the freestream flow or downwards into the cavity volume according to the pressure difference between the cavity volume and the outer flow. This allows transpiration between the freestream and the cavity, the strength of which, again, depends on the difference between the cavity pressure and the freestream pressure. Validation of the CFD code was obtained by comparison of results from the code with experimental data taken with a similar geometry. Optimization analysis was then performed for a number of design variables. This effort was accelerated by the parallelization of the code, also reported in this paper.