Incipient Separation of a Supersonic, Turbulent Boundary Layer, Including Effects of Heat Transfer

An experimental study of the interaction of a turbulent boundary layer with a compression corner has been conducted at a Mach number of 2.9, Reynolds number based upon boundary-layer thickness of 2.2 to 5.9 x 104, and ratio of wall-temperat ure-to-recovery-temperature of 1.05 to 0.47. Adiabatic wall data showed an incipient separation angle of 6.5°, as determined by the liquid line method. The static pressure distribution was found to be insensitive to the presence of small regions of separated flow. The present results, combined with other data, shown an increasing trend of incipient separation angle with Reynolds number. The effect of wall cooling was to increase the incipient separation angle and reduce the separation distance.