Choking limit prediction for diamond airfoils in supersonic ground effect

Supersonic diamond airfoils operating in ground effect exhibit choking phenomena, where slight variations in free-stream Mach number can induce significant alterations in the ground effect flow structure and consequently affect the aerodynamic loading on the airfoil. However, existing models for predicting the choking limit Mach number demonstrate systematic discrepancies. This study establishes a novel predictive model by analysing the steady inviscid supersonic flow field around a two-dimensional diamond airfoil in ground effect. Benchmarking against numerical simulations demonstrates that the prediction errors for the choking limit Mach number across various diamond airfoil geometries are all below 3.5 %. These results affirm the high accuracy of the proposed predictive model. Under critical choking conditions, the ground effect flow field manifests multiple shock structures, including regular reflection, curved reflection and strong Mach reflection. Crucially, all of these configurations share the characteristic feature of the reflected shock impinging on the lower vertex of the airfoil. Consequently, the problem of predicting the choking limit is reformulated as determining the free-stream Mach number at which the reflected shock strikes the lower vertex of the airfoil. To circumvent complications from the reflected shock curvature inherent to critical choking, the model solves mass and momentum conservation equations for a strategically defined control volume. This approach eliminates curvature-induced errors, enabling precise prediction of the choking limit Mach number for supersonic diamond airfoils in ground effect.