Numerical Study of Plasma-Assisted Aerodynamic Control for Hypersonic Vehicles

Plasma actuators and various forms of volumetric energy deposition have received a good deal of research attention recently as a means of hypersonic flight control. An open question remains as to whether the required power expenditures for such devices can be achieved for practical systems. To address this issue, a numerical study is carried out for hypersonic flow over a blunt-nose elliptic cone to determine the amount of energy deposition necessary for flight control. Energy deposition is simulated by means of a phenomenological dissipative heating model. A parametric study of the effects of energy deposition is carried out for several blunt elliptic cone configurations. Three different volumetric energy deposition patterns are considered: a spherical pattern, a "pancake" pattern (oblate spheroid), and a "bean" pattern (prolate spheroid). The effectiveness of volumetric energy deposition for flight control appears to scale strongly with a nondimensional parameter based on the freestream flow kinetic energy flux.