Side Gust Effects on the Performance of a Supersonic Inlet with Bleed

A computational investigation on the effects of side gust on the performance of a supersonic inlet with a bleed system at Mach 1.8 is reported. This is an extension to a recent study (Halwas, H. K., and Aggarwal, S. K., "Effect of Side Gust on the Performance of External Compression Supersonic Inlet," Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 56, No. 2, March 2019, pp. 569-582) that analyzed a similar inlet without bleed. The supersonic section is designed using the Taylor-Maccoll method, and the rest of the inlet is designed using a methodology from the literature. The bleed is positioned at the throat inner wall, and its shape is a combination of a ram scoop and a flush slot. ICEM CFD software is used to generate a three-dimensional (3-D) structured mesh. ANSYS Fluent 18.2 code is used to perform 3-D simulations. Grid sensitivity tests are performed using local grid refinements and by varying the total grid points from 3 to 10 million. The effects of side gust on the shock system and flow are analyzed by examining the Mach number and pressure distributions. The inlet performance is characterized in terms of the total pressure loss, flow distortion, and mass flow ratio parameters for a gust speed of 56 m/s and angles of 0, 30, and 60 deg. The results indicate that the inlet performance is significantly affected by the side gust, although the bleed system mostly removes the low-momentum flow.