CFD study on the aerodynamic performance of secondary injection for thrust vectoring

Abstract

A numerical study of secondary injection thrust vectoring for a generic missile at supersonic speed was undertaken and the results are compared with the ones of a primary nozzle with flexible bearing (mechanical thrust vector scheme). In addition the ability to use the secondary injection in the primary nozzle for pure side jet control was investigated. The study showed that the secondary injection thrust vectoring scheme shows a similar performance like the mechanical thrust vector scheme. Although the performance depends on physical boundary conditions: inclination of the secondary injection nozzle, flow field of the primary nozzle. Considering numerical issues, the turbulence model has a significant impact for the SITVC simulations. The pure side jet simulations in this study showed noticeable control forces but they have been significantly smaller than the ones of the SITVC scheme. This was due to an unfavorable interaction of the secondary injection jet with the opposite primary nozzle wall.