Two and Three Dimensional Simulations of Supersonic Cavity Configurations

Abstract

The flow over cavities can produce complex unsteady flowfields that are an important practical concern in aerospace applications. Understanding the flow field in the cavity can help to determine the driving mechanism of the oscillations to create effective control methods to avoid structural damage. In this study, both two and three dimensional time-dependent Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes simulations are performed for the flow over an open cavity to demonstrate the capability of computational fluid dynamics to accurately predict the supersonic flow field inside a cavity and to assess the adequacy of two dimensional simulations in capturing cavity flow physics accurately. In this particular problem of a supersonic flow over a cavity, the three-dimensional effects cannot be neglected. A two-dimensional simulation would give an insight about the longitudinal mode of the cavity flow without any three-dimensional effects, but it is not enough to understand the real physics of the problem.