Hypersonic flow over a wedge in the detached shock range

Abstract: In a recent publication Hornung (2019) showed that the shock wave stand-off distance and the drag coefficient of a cone in inviscid hypersonic flow of a perfect gas can be expressed as the product of a function of the inverse normal-shock density ratio and a function of a cone-angle parameter, thus reducing the number of independent parameters from three (Mach number, specific heat ratio and angle) to two. By making a large number of Euler computations, analytic forms of the functions were obtained. In this article the same approach is applied to the symmetrical flow over a wedge. It turns out that the same simplification applies and corresponding analytical forms of the functions are obtained. The functions of the normal-shock density ratio are compared with newly determined corresponding functions for flow over a circular cylinder.