A Gun Tunnel Investigation of Hypersonic Free Shear Layers in a Planar Duct

An experimental investigation of high Mach number free shear layers has been undertaken. The experiments were performed using a Mach 7 gun tunnel facility and a planar duct with injection from the base of a central strut producing a Mach 3 flow parallel to the gun tunnel stream. This configuration is relevant to the development of efficient scramjet propulsion, and the gun tunnel Mach number is significantly higher than the majority of previous supersonic turbulent mixing layer investigations reported in the open literature. Schlieren images and Pitot pressure measurements were obtained at four different convective Mach numbers ranging from 0 to 1.8. Only small differences between the four cases were detected, and the relatively large high-speed boundary layers at the trailing edge of the struct injector appear to strongly influence the shear layer development in each case. The Pitot pressure measurements indicated that, on average, the free shear layers all spread into the Mach 3 stream at an angle of approximately 1.4 degrees, while virtually no spreading into the Mach 7 stream was detected until all of the low-speed stream was entrained. The free shear layers were simulated using a PNS code; however, the experimentally observed degree of spreading rate asymmetry could not be fully predicted with the k-epsilon turbulence model, even when a recently proposed compressibility correction was applied