Influence of numerical and viscous dissipation on shock wave reflections in supersonic steady flows

Numerical simulations are investigated to describe precisely the shock wave reflections in supersonic steady air flow field. The main objectives are to study the influence of the wedge trailing edge corner angle, of the numerical methods and of the viscous effects on the shock wave reflections and on the hysteresis behavior. The computations are done with different MUSCL-TVD finite volume schemes and the corresponding results are compared. The flow viscosity is also taken into account and comparisons are made between inviscid and viscous flow simulations. The results display the non-negligible influence of the numerical scheme accuracy on the results, mainly on the position and height of the Mach stem, and the relatively weak influence of the flow viscosity on these parameters. Comparisons between numerical results and experimental data have also been done and a good agreement is only observed for small wedge angles mainly due to the three-dimensional effects in the experimental setup.