Transonic choking and stabilization for flows about slender bodies (Q1107389)

Near sonic flow about a slender body in free flight and choked flow about a slender body in a wide axisymmetric solid wall wind tunnel are analyzed. The framework of transonic small disturbance theory is used so that the slender body appears axisymmetric to lowest order in thickness ratio. Asymptotic expansions are constructed in terms of the transonic similarity variable K, as \(K\to 0\) \(+\), in an inner region about the body, and in an outer region far from the body which, for wind tunnel flow, is near the tunnel walls. The inner expansion consists of sonic free flow plus a correction, the outer expansion handles the termination of the supersonic zone which, in the case of wind tunnel flows, accounts for the meeting of the limiting characteristic surface and the sonic surface at the wall. In both flows the order of magnitude of the correction to sonic free flow near the body is found and in addition for wind tunnel flows the dependence of the wind tunnel radius on the free stream Mach number in order to maintain choking is found. For the near sonic free flows this clarifies the ``stabilization law,'' that is the observation that near sonic the flow near the body, in front of the shock, stabilizes. Boundary value problems are formulated for the determination of the explicit correction.