Studies of a Caret inlet at subsonic speeds

A Caret inlet was studied by means of experiment and numerical simulation. Basic aerodynamic characteristics of the inlet at low and subsonic speeds were presented. The experimental as well as computational results revealed that flow separations may exist at match state of inlet/engine at low speeds due to the existence of large mass flow rate coefficients. It was the true mechanism causing the low total pressure recovery in the inlet as demonstrated. Experimental results show a low total pressure region being taken place at the upper left corner of the duct exit, which is matched with the results obtained by numerical computations showing that flow separations on set occurs at the low-outboard corner of inlet entrance and develop with no circumrotation.