Supersonic and Subsonic Projectile Overtaking Problems in Muzzle Gun Applications

A projectile when passes through a moving shock wave, experiences drastic changes in the aerodynamic forces as it moves from a high-pressure region to a low pressure region. These sudden changes in the forces are attributed to the wave structures produced by the projectile-flow field interaction, and are responsible for destabilizing the trajectory of the projectile. These flow fields are usually encountered in the vicinity of the launch tube exit of a ballistic range facility, thrusters, retro-rocket firings, silo injections, missile firing ballistics, etc. In earlier works, projectile was assumed in a steady flow field when the computations start and the blast wave maintains a constant strength. However, in real situations, the projectile produces transient effects in the flow field which have a deterministic effect on the overtaking process. In the present work, the overtaking problem encountered in the near-field of muzzle guns is investigated for several projectile Mach numbers. Computations have been carried out using a chimera mesh scheme. The results show that, the unsteady wave structures are completely different from that of the steady flow field where the blast wave maintains a constant strength, and the supersonic and subsonic overtaking conditions cannot be distinguished by identifying the projectile bow shock wave only.