ASMELASH HAFTU AMAHA*, et al.
/ (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Numerical Analysis of Shock Wave
Turbulent Boundary Layer Interaction
over a 2-D Compression Ramp
ASMELASH HAFTU AMAHA
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Defence Institute of Advanced Technology,
Girinagar, Pune-411025, Maharashtra, India
E-mail: ahaftu@yahoo.com
Abstract: - A shock wave turbulent
boundary layer interaction has been
analyzed computationally in a two-
dimensional compression ramps for a
free stream Mach number of 2.85.
used to produce the full range of
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Ramp angles ranging from 8 to 240 were
possible flow fields, including flows with
no separation, moderate separation, and
significant amount of separation. The
model has been studied based on a
commercially available Computational
Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Code that
employs Shear Stress Transport (SST)
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of k-ω turbulence model and Realizable
k-ɛ model. The CFD code and the
turbulence models used are validated by
comparing with experimental results
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available in literature. The computed
data for surface pressure distribution
and skin friction coefficient indicated a
good comparison with the experiment.
Numerical results obtained through the
present series of computations indicate
an increased separation and
reattachment locations, when compared
to experiment. Measurements of total
pressure have shown to increase from
separation to reattachment points and
increase when ramp angle increases.
ISSN: 2230-7818 @ 2011 http://www.ijaest.iserp.org. All rights Reserved.
Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 144 - 149
AMARJIT SINGH
Department of Aerospace Engineering,
Defence Institute of Advanced Technology,
Girinagar, Pune-411025, Maharashtra, India
E-mail: amarjit100@gmail.com
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Keywords:- Ramp flow, Shock wave,
Separation, Reattachment, turbulent
boundary layer.
I. INTRODUCTION
The interaction between a shock wave
and a turbulent boundary layer or
(SWTBLI) remains one of the most
outstanding problems of modern high
speed fluid dynamics. The complicated
nature of the interaction embodies most
challenging effects and raises difficult
problems which are still largely unsolved
both in internal and external flows.
SWTBLIs are prevalent in a variety of
high speed applications, such as long haul
civil transportation systems, as well as
other high-speed manoeuvring vehicles,
and thus can induce separation which
causes loss of control surface
effectiveness, loss of total pressure, drop
of air intake efficiency and may be at the
origin of large scale fluctuations such as
detrimental air intake buzz or engine
extinction, buffeting or fluctuating side
loads in separated propulsive nozzles.
Therefore, an in-depth knowledge of the
phenomena is essential for efficient
aerodynamic and propulsion design. [1-3,
5-8]
A review of literature published in
this area indicates that, the complex
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ASMELASH HAFTU AMAHA*, et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
interaction between shock waves and
turbulent boundary layers continue to be of
great interest to researchers. There is a
need for additional research work. Some of
the authors who have extensively studied
the flow field in the ramp flow include:
(Delery (1985) [1]), (Daniel Arnal and
J.M. Delery (2004) [2]), (A.B. Oliver et al
(2007) [3]), (Settles et al (1994) [4]), and
(D. W. Kuntz [5]).
The investigation described in this
report was conducted in order to provide
detailed physical description of the
SWTBLIs to improve the capability to
predict the surface pressure and wall shear
stress for these interactions. The
investigation was conducted using the
CFD code, and thus has produced new
information concerning loss of total
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pressure ratio in the separated zone, which
adversely affects the performance of high
speed aeronautical/aerospace devices.
II. THEORY
Shock wave turbulent boundary layer
interactions are basically two-dimensional
and three-dimensional. 2-D interactions
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include: the ramp flow, the impinging
reflecting shock, and the pressure
discontinuity resulting from adaptation to a
higher downstream pressure level. 3-D
interactions include, swept shock boundary
layer interaction. In this paper, Ramp flow
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interaction, which corresponds to a control
surface or an air-intake compression ramp,
has been considered.
Compression Ramp Flow
The ramp flow interaction occurs
when supersonic flow along a flat plate is
compressed by a wedge or ramp of angle
α. When the ramp angle α is small, the
overall flow structure is not much affected
by the interaction taking place at the ramp
origin. The main difference is a spreading
of the wall pressure distribution, the step
of the inviscid solution being replaced by a
2
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 144 - 149
progressive rise between the upstream
pressure level p0 and the final value p1
corresponding to the oblique shock
equations.
When the ramp angle α is
increased (hence the shock strength), the
upstream influence distance (L0 defined as
the distance between the interaction onset
and the ramp origin) increases accordingly
and a situation can be reached where the
pressure rise is high enough to induce
separation of the boundary layer (Figure
1). In this situation:
1. The ramp upstream influence, hence
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upstream influence length L0, has
considerably increased.
2. A first shock associated with separation
forms well upstream of the ramp.
3. A second shock originates from the
reattachment region on the ramp which
intersects the separation shock at a short
distance from the wall.
p1
p0
α
L0
Fig1. The structure of a ramp flow with boundary
layer separation [2]
III. NUMERICAL SIMULATION
Grid generation and boundary conditions
Commercially available CFD software
has been used to simulate two-
dimensional, high-speed, turbulent flow
with air as the fluid for a flow over a
compression-ramp at free-stream Mach
numbers (M0 = 2.85). The flow conditions
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 144 - 149

and simulation setups used are given in opposite the viscous wall (isothermal), and
this section. pressure outlet at the outflow. A
convergence criterion for the residuals of
To study the flow-field of the
all equations has been set to (10-6).
interaction, the basic ramp flow geometry
Turbulent Intensity of (5%) and viscosity
used in [3] has been adopted for the
ratio of 5 has been used. Boundary layer
present study, primarily due to the
thickness (δ) computed from simulation at
availability of experimental data. Basic
interaction origin was 25mm.
mesh details of the ramp (200) are shown
in figure 2 with a typical grid distribution
adopted near the corner region.
Table1. Free stream and inflow boundary
Computations were made by using grid to layer data
grid file interpolation technique with three
different grids [Grid 1 (63000 cells), Grid Ramp M∞ T0[K] P0[Pa] δ Re∞[m-1]
2 (87000 cells) and Grid 3 (101500 cells)] [mm]

in two blocks and 0 < y+ < 0.4. Density

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80 2.87 280 6.9E+05 26 60.8.106
based implicit solver with upwind second
order discretisation scheme for flow and 120 2.87 280 6.9E+05 26 60.8.106
transport equations was chosen to capture 160 2.85 268 6.9E+05 26 65.6.106
shocks better at cell faces. Convergence
criteria were considered when residuals
have fallen by three orders and
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measurement of shear stress at different
locations converged to four significant
200

240
2.85

2.84
258

262
6.9E+05

6.9E+05
25

23
69.5.106

68.3.106

digits all achieved after 30000 iterations. Table 2. Reference values used in data reduction

The software is commercially available

software that solves steady state and time Ramp 80 160 200 240
accurate CFD problems on
structured/unstructured grids. The δRef[mm] 26 26 25 23
commercial software has several solvers
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PRef[Pa] 22856 23561 23561 23561
for both incompressible and compressible
flows in both an implicit and explicit
numerical framework.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
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Results of the simulation computed by

the CFD Code are presented in this section
along with discussion. Non-
dimensionalizing reference values are
given in table2. Density contour plots and
plots of shear stress, skin friction
coefficient, surface pressure distribution,
and total pressure are presented.
Fig 2. Grid system (computational domain)
At 80, (figure 3), the flow is attached.
Shock originates at the corner location and
The boundary conditions for the 2- the curvature of the shock results from
D ramp flow grid systems are pressure Mach number gradient in the incoming
inlet at the inflow boundary, boundary layer. A greater upstream
pressure_far_field on the boundary influence is seen in 160 ramp, showing the
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ASMELASH HAFTU AMAHA*, et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
first evidence of separation line. The 200
and 240 corner angles indicate a clear
significant separation. For 200 and 240, the
intersection of separation and reattachment
shocks indicates a slight bend from which
a stronger shock appears due to merging of
the two left running shocks. For this type
of shock-shock interaction, the reflected
wave and slip line are indicated in figure 1.
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Fig. 3 Plot of density contours near the corner
region (80-240)
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Fig. 4 Surface shear stress distribution on (80-160)
Fig. 5 Surface shear stress distribution on (160-240)
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 144 - 149
The shear stress distribution parallel to
wall and corner surfaces for 80 to 160 is
depicted in figures 4. In this case, only the
160 flow show the insipient separation
condition.
In figure 5, how the size of the
separated region increases with shock
strength is plotted for 160 to 240 ramp
angles. The negative wall shear stress
shows the region of reversed flows and the
idea is as described by the density contour
plots.
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Fig. 6 Skin friction coefficient (200)
In figure 6, skin friction coefficient (Cf)
computed by Realizable k-ɛ and SST is
compared to experiment. Both models
show larger separation region compared to
the experimental data. SST shows
separation earlier and reattaches later. R.
k-ɛ is closer to the experiment in the
recovery region
Fig.7 Comparison of Surface pressure distributions
on various compression ramp interactions (80-240)
ramps
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Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 144 - 149

Figure 7 shows the static pressure

ratios for various corner angles (shock
strengths) in the flow field and on the ramp
surfaces for flow at mach 2.85. The (80 and
120) show unseparated flows. Incipient
separation is observed at 160 which show a
shift in the sharp pressure rise indicating
the beginning of upstream influence.
The pressure distributions for 200 and
0
24 indicate that in a region of separation, c
the wall pressure initially rises gradually
through the unsteady motion of the
Fig.8 Comparison of surface pressure distributions
separation shock. The wall pressure based on SST, Realizable k-ɛ and Experiment. (a)
reaches a plateau in the fully separated 160 ramp, (b) 200 ramp, (c) 240 ramp

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region and then rises gradually again after
the flow reattaches. The pressure For weaker interaction (figure 8
distribution reveals the large upstream (a)) the turbulence models are in a closer
influence and large streamwise extent of agreement between themselves and to the
the interaction. experiment. However, when the interaction
strength increases (200 and 240), the
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Also the intensity of the SWTBLI can
be characterised by its upstream influence,
which is the upstream distance at which
turbulence models show slightly higher
separation size (figure 6 (b) and (c)) may
be due to lower Reynolds number effects.
the shock presence is first felt. Reverse
flow ends at the reattachment point, but the As seen from figure 8, the SST model
flow is still highly retarded. The main separates too early.
parameters that influence the extent of the
upstream extent are the upstream Mach
number, Reynolds number, ramp angle (α),
and boundary layer thickness.
A
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Fig.9 Total pressure ratios at Sp, 0, and R-points

a for 240 ramp

In figures 9, Comparison of total

pressure loss is presented. This
comparison on three different locations of
the interaction (at separation location „S‟ at
interaction origin „0‟ at Reattachment
location „R‟) show that the total pressure
loss inside the boundary layer increases
from separation to the reattachment points
b as the flow moves down stream of the
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ASMELASH HAFTU AMAHA*, et al. / (IJAEST) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED ENGINEERING SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGIES
Vol No. 5, Issue No. 2, 144 - 149

interaction. This is because total pressure ACKNOWLEDGMENT

depends on static pressure which increases
downstream and the effect of the The authors are sincerely thankful to:
separation is carried downstream. Prof. L.M. Patnaik, Vice Chancellor; Prof.
R.D. Misal, Head, Department of
Mechanical Engineering; and Computer
Engineering Department, of Defence
Institute of Advanced Technology (DU),
Girinagar, Pune-411025, Maharashtra,
India, for supporting this work.

REFERENCES

[1] J.M. Delery: “Shock Wave Turbulent

Fig.10. total pressure ratios 8-240 at interaction
origin
In figure 10, the loss in total pressure
increases with increasing deflection angle,
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Boundary Layer Interaction and its
Control,” Aerospace Sci. Vol. 22, pp.
209-280, 1985.
[2] Daniel Arnal and Jean Delery: Shock
Wave Boundary Layer Interaction,

time to recover when the shock strength

increases.
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and thus the boundary layer requires more NATO, May 2004.
[3] A. B. Oliver et al: “Assessment of
Turbulent Shock-Boundary Layer
Interaction Computations Using the
OVERFLOW Code,” School of
V. CONCLUSIONS Aeronautics and Astronautics Purdue
Flow has been simulated for University, January 2007.
compression ramps of deflection angles [4] Gary S. Settles and Lori j. Dodson:
ranging from 8-240 at M0 of 2.85. Using “Hypersonic Shock/Boundary Layer
the density contours, incipient separation Interaction Database: New and
A
was observed at 160, and a fully separated Corrected Data,” NASA Contractor
situation has been observed explicitly Report 177638, April 1994.
showing the separation and reattachment [5] D. W. Kuntz et al: “Turbulent
shocks for higher deflection angles. Boundary layer Properties
Downstream of the Shock-Wave/
The skin friction coefficient and surface
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Boundary Layer Interaction,” AIAA

pressure distributions predicted by the
journal Vol.25, No.5, May 1987.
CFD Code for the 2-D compression ramps
[6] K.Sinha, K. Mahesh et al: “Modelling
based on SST and Realizable k-ɛ models
the effects of shock unsteadiness in
have shown greater tendency to separate,
Shock turbulent Boundary Layer
possibly an effect of the low Reynolds
Interactions,” AIAA Journal Vol. 43,
number employed in the models. The SST
No. 3, March 2005.
model has predicted the separation region
[7] Patrick Bookey et al.: “An
earlier. Total pressure loss has shown to
experimental investigations of Mach 3
increase downstream of the separation
Shock-Wave Turbulent Boundary
location and increase when corner angle
Layer Interactions,” Princeton,
increases. This is because of the static
NJ08540, AIAA-2005-4899.
pressure and effect of the separation.
[8] DC Wilcox: “Turbulence modelling for
CFD,” 1994.M.
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