The effects of plasma clouds on aerodynamic performance of subsonic/supersonic inlets

The effects of the charged particles’ reactions on performance of inlet are numerically studied using the computation software ACANS that has been developed. The Reynolds averaged mean flow equations (RANS) are utilized as control equations, as well as SST k-ω model as turbulence model. The reactions of charged particles are also considered in the numerically simulation, consisting of 11 components and 20 elementary reactions. In order to find the key control parameters of this issue, this paper has studied the effects of concentration, Mach number and temperature on the reactions respectively. Numerical results indicate that total temperature seems to be a key control parameter of this issue. Charged particles that come into the interior of inlet together with air will be used up quickly and the change of mass fraction of oxygen is small when the total temperature is not high. Meanwhile, the effects on aerodynamic performance of inlet such as total pressure recovery coefficient are slight. It will raise the equilibrium electron concentration of outlet and influence flow parameters such as total pressure recovery and total temperature nonuniformity to increase total temperature of entry.