A Detailed Look into the Aerodynamic Forces Due to the Drag-Reducing Aerospike

This thesis aims to simulate previous wind tunnel experiments on the drag-reducing aerospike in order to help validate the accuracy of CFD analysis. Multiple grids were created with the Pointwise grid generation software. The CFD analysis software used was Ansys Fluent, with both planar and axisymmetric cases being tested for the primary rocket in order to compare the differences. The tests with the primary rocket followed how a spike of set length reacted at various speeds. Two additional experiments were duplicated. These helped confirm that the results obtained via Fluent were accurate. One case was a simple transonic spike model, and the other was a more complex hypersonic model. The results from both cases matched well with wind tunnel tests, validating results for the primary rocket. This thesis paves the way for anyone wanting to continue a more in depth study into the flow properties of any type of projectile