Numerical analysis of supersonic cavity flow

Abstract

The aim of this study is to simulate supersonic turbulent flow past an open rectangular cavity using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and to observe the effects of cavity geometry, basically the length to depth ratio (L/D) of the cavity on the oscillation mechanism inside the cavity. CFD software Fluent and the grid generation tool Gambit are utilized. Two dimensional compressible time dependent Reynolds Averaged Navier- Stokes equations with k-? turbulence model are solved. Solutions are obtained for a cavity of a length to depth ratio (L/D) of 1,3, 5, 7.6 and 10, and for a Mach number of 1.5, analyses are performed for a two dimensional cavity geometry and grid independence tests are performed. The results of two dimensional computations are compared to each other and L/D=5 simulation results are compared with the experimental results in literature. Sound Pressure Levels (SPL) and mean pressure coefficients are used for comparison. The effects of different cavity geometries on the oscillation mechanism are examined.