Numerical investigation of lateral jet interaction effects on a spinning missile

In this paper, computational fluid dynamics simulation was conducted for a lateral-jet-controlled spinning missile under supersonic conditions to investigate the influence of jet interference on the aerodynamic characteristics of the spinning missile. For numerical simulation, the Menter shear-stress transport turbulence model was used to solve the three-dimensional unsteady compressible Navier–Stokes equations, and the sliding mesh method was utilized to simulate the flow field numerically. The methodology and mesh were validated by comparing the numerical results with the realistic wind tunnel data. The lateral jet interference characteristics of a spinning missile were studied, in which the various characteristics of the interference flow field structure, interference amplification factors and the lateral force were analysed and compared with those without the effects of spinning. Moreover, the effects of different pressure ratios on the flow field and aerodynamic characteristics were also studied. The results show that the missile spinning motion changes the shape of the separation region before the jet nozzle, and the jet wake deflects circumferentially. The deflection angle of the low-pressure region behind the jet is larger than the one of the high-pressure region ahead of the jet, therefore a jet-induced lateral force is generated on the spinning missile. The magnitude of lateral force increases with the increase of spin rate, and the direction of lateral force may change with the increase of angles of attack. The directions of jet interference force and jet control force will deflect when spinning missile adopting lateral jet control, and the deflection angles increases with the increase of spin rate. When spin rate is same, lateral force coefficient increases with the increase of pressure ratios and the deflection angles of jet interference force and jet control force decrease with the increase of pressure ratios.