Supersonic and Subsonic Projectile Overtaking Problems in Muzzle Gun Applications
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AJCPP 2008 March 6-8, 2008, Gyeongju, Korea Supersonic and Subsonic Projectile Overtaking Problems in Muzzle Gun Applications Rajesh Gopalapillai, Suryakant Nagdewe and Heuy Dong Kim School of Mechanical Engineering, Andong National University, 388, Songchun-dong, Andong, Korea [email protected] Toshiaki Setoguchi Department of Mechanical Engineering, Saga University, 1, Honjo, Saga 840-8502, Japan Keywords: Blast Wave, Projectile, Ballistic Range, Overtaking, Chimera Mesh Abstract A projectile when passes through a moving shock ambient gas that has early been perturbed by the blast wave, experiences drastic changes in the aerodynamic wave. Behind the contact surface, an unsteady jet is forces as it moves from a high-pressure region to a developed by the discharge of the compressed gas. low pressure region. These sudden changes in the This unsteady jet may often be accompanied by a forces are attributed to the wave structures produced shock wave, the strength of which is again dependent by the projectile-flow field interaction, and are on the projectile acceleration4. responsible for destabilizing the trajectory of the Following the unsteady jet, the projectile is projectile. These flow fields are usually encountered discharged, consequently leading to strong interaction in the vicinity of the launch tube exit of a ballistic between the projectile and the unsteady jet when the range facility, thrusters, retro-rocket firings, silo former passes through the preceding unsteady jet. The injections, missile firing ballistics, etc. In earlier effects of this interaction are usually reflected in the works, projectile was assumed in a steady flow field unsteady fluctuating forces that act on the projectile when the computations start and the blast wave itself5. As the projectile’s motion proceeds, a bow maintains a constant strength. However, in real shock wave may be produced in front of the projectile, situations, the projectile produces transient effects in depending on the projectile speed and local flow the flow field which have a deterministic effect on the states. Therefore, the projectile flow field, being time- overtaking process. In the present work, the dependent, has a strong dependence on the preceding overtaking problem encountered in the near-field of PBW and bow shock wave. As time advances, the muzzle guns is investigated for several projectile projectile may or may not overtake the preceding Mach numbers. Computations have been carried out PBW in a short distance, subject to certain conditions using a chimera mesh scheme. The results show that, which will be discussed later, in more detail. the unsteady wave structures are completely different Meanwhile, the high-pressure gas which, in from that of the steady flow field where the blast wave general, is obtained by the combustion explosion in maintains a constant strength, and the supersonic and the ballistic range6, and used to drive the projectile subsonic overtaking conditions cannot be initially, is discharged, immediately after the distinguished by identifying the projectile bow shock projectile is ejected from the launch tube. The wave only. secondary blast wave (SBW) is formed due to the sudden discharge of the high-pressure combustion gas. Introduction The so called Ritchmyer-Meshcow instability develops when the contact surface following the PBW When a projectile suddenly starts to move in the is swept by the SBW7. launch tube of a ballistic range, a series of A highly under-expanded supersonic jet is compression waves are formed ahead of the projectile produced due to the discharge of the high-pressure due to its piston effect. These compression waves combustion gas. Inside the jet, a strong Mach disk is coalesce into a normal shock wave in which its formed to match the pressure levels behind the strength depends on the acceleration of the projectile. moving projectile. If the discharged high-pressure The shock wave propagates towards the exit of the combustion gas maintains a constant mass flow rate, launch tube, and is discharged from the launch tube, the under-expanded jet structure will be steady8, forming a spherical blast wave due to the shock unlike the unsteady jet produced by the discharge of diffraction at the exit of the launch tube. This blast the compressed gas in between the normal shock wave is usually called the primary blast wave (PBW) wave and the projectile in the very beginning9. and develops with associated starting vortices at the As described above, the flow field around the exit of the launch tube1-3. moving projectile is highly complicated as well as Shortly after the discharge of the shock wave strongly time-dependent. There are various types of from the launch tube, the compressed gas in between interactions among the shear layers, shock waves, the shock wave and moving projectile inside the wake flow behind the projectile and the moving launch tube is discharged and a contact surface is projectile itself. These complex flow phenomena formed at the boundary of the compressed gas and the 711cannot help but be reflected on the aerodynamic 1 AJCPP 2008 March 6-8, 2008, Gyeongju, Korea forces, thus having major influences on the flight with constant strength. The overtaking process being control and stability of projectile10. purely time-dependant, many questions need to be All these related phenomena take place in a very answered with regard to its transient nature. It is not short interval of time, and the measurement of the known exactly at what conditions the projectile detailed aerodynamics is extremely difficult. So far, overtakes the blast wave and what parameters control the investigation of the projectile aerodynamics and the overtaking problem. Moreover, detailed projectile aeroballistics has been limited to the visualization aerodynamics produced at the instant when it pictures of the flow field using a high-speed optical overtakes the blast wave is an exciting problem to the system11, and quantitative data associated with the aerodynamic designers. flying projectile aerodynamics are sparse to date. It is The present study concerns with the projectile expected that the aerodynamic forces drastically aerodynamics and gets insight into the detailed change as the projectile interacts with the unsteady jet overtaking flow field. One-dimensional analysis has and the shock systems around or it passes through the been performed to shed new light on the overtaking primary blast wave12. For example, as the projectile flow fields. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) passes through the primary blast wave, or the method using a moving grid system has been projectile interacts with the preceding unsteady jet, it employed to simulate the projectile aerodynamics on experiences a sudden change in the aerodynamic drag. such flow fields. The present computations The aerodynamic force data associated with such successfully represent the projectile aerodynamics situations are highly lacking and have been characteristics and predict well the projectile ambiguously conjectured until now. acceleration, velocity and aerodynamic drag which Only a few works9-12 have been to date made to were hardly obtained in experiments. investigate such interaction flow field around the flying projectile. Thus, the prediction of the unsteady One –Dimensional Analysis of the Projectile projectile aerodynamic data is now one of very Overtaking challenging works which are recently being paid In general, the speed of sound downstream of a much attention from researchers and aerodynamic shock wave is higher than that upstream of it. Thus, a designers as well. wave or an object can overtake the preceding shock Of many aspects of the unsteady projectile wave, depending on the strength of the shock wave aerodynamics described above, one of the most and the speed of the object relative to the flow behind important phenomena occurs as projectile overtakes the shock wave. In order to analyze the projectile the preceding blast wave. Recently, Watanabe, et. al.13 overtaking problems, we assume the overtaking flow investigated the projectile overtaking flow fields to to be unsteady and one-dimensional. The primary study the projectile aerodynamics. They used a one- blast wave is hence assumed as a normal shock wave dimensional analysis to study the overtaking criteria with constant propagation speed. For a given normal and argued that the overtaking process can be either shock wave that propagates at constant speed of Mach subsonic or supersonic based on the projectile Mach number Ms in still air, the flow properties can be number relative to the flow behind the blast wave. calculated behind the shock wave. It is also assumed They arbitrarily assumed the projectile and blast wave that a projectile with speed up is propagating towards Mach numbers and their computations started from a the normal shock wave. steady state solution of the flow field. The blast wave Assuming that the flow states across the shock maintained constant strength throughout their wave are denoted by the subscripts 1 and 2, and the 14 computations. Later, Ahmedika and Shirani have projectile velocity is given by up, the shock wave done viscous computations on transonic and supersonic overtaking flow fields using similar assumptions. In both of these works, the relative projectile Mach number was the major factor to decide the overtaking criterion. However, in actual situations where the blast wave propagation is a transient phenomenon, the strength of the blast wave will be decreasing and the relative