A review on Investigation and analysis of flow separation for supersonic convergent–divergent nozzles

Flow separation in supersonic convergent–divergent nozzles has been the subject of several experimental and numerical studies in the past. Now, with the renewed interest in supersonic flights and space vehicles, the subject has become increasingly important, especially for aerospace applications (rockets, missiles, supersonic aircrafts, etc). Flow separation in supersonic nozzles is a basic fluid dynamics phenomenon that occurs at a certain pressure ratio of chamber to ambient pressure, resulting in shock formation and shock/turbulent-boundary layer interaction inside the nozzle. From purely gas-dynamics point of view, this problem involves basic structure of shock interactions with separation shock, which consists of incident shock, Mach reflections, reflected shock, triple point and slip lines.