Aerospike for Hypersonic Missiles

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