Experimental study of flow characteristics of inlet /internal flowpath for a hypersonic flight vehicle

The flow field structure and starting characteristics of two-dimensional inlet/internal flowpath for an airbreathing hypersonic vehicle was analyzed using Ma∞=7 wind tunnel test method.The experimental results show that:if the inlet flowpath is started under incoming total pressure(0.5～1.9 MPa) and unit Reynolds number(2.48×10⁶～7.95×10⁶1/m), the variation of the incoming total pressure and Reynolds number has little effect on the static pressure distributions along inlet/internal flowpath;the inlet-isolator could withstand maximum back pressure 250 times the free-stream static pressure, before flow in the inlet compression section is disturbed;the inlet has a self-starting ability if no lateral plate is added, and the outlet pressure at the isolator increases if lateral plates are added before the cowl;under the working condition at the design point, the inlet flowpath has a compression ratio 42.9, total pressure recovery of 0.27, and mass-weighted average Mach number of 2.76.