Following selection to the Team Hypersonics UK Framework, we have been using blastFoam to simulate an aerospike at Mach 6.
The aerospike was conceived in the 1950s for high-speed missiles to reduce heat transfer rates and drag.
The concept was incorporated into Trident missiles, reducing drag by up to 50% at Mach numbers as high as 8.
The end of the aerospike (aerodisk) allows a fixed length aerospike to be effective over a wide range of Mach numbers.
Tests were performed in the NASA Langley Research Center 20-Inch Mach 6 Tunnel to obtain quantitative surface pressure and temperature-rise data, as well as qualitative flow visualization data.
Comparison simulations were conducted with the blastFoam solver using a 2D/Axisymmetric grid of 480 x 1440 cells.
Still free, still open source, still awesome. See for yourself: https://github.com/synthetik-technologies/blastfoam
