Wind tunnel force test of fairing separation in hypersonic and high dynamic pressure situation

For the problem of an integral fairing separating from a hypersonic test demonstrator in a high dynamic situation, the reverse-thrust jets simulation method and wind tunnel force test model design have been developed, to meet the requirements of simulating the jets interaction effect and separation distance influence in the hypersonic wind tunnel. The fairing’s aerodynamic characteristics, including the jets interaction effect and the separation distance influence, were obtained by the strain balance in circumstances where the Mach number of the free-stream was 5 and the dynamic pressure was 33 kPa. The study indicates that the jets interaction effect dominates fairing’s aerodynamic characteristics in the separation process. The maximum coefficients’ variation of the normal force, axial force and pitching moment are 44.5%, 32.4% and 198.6% respectively. The pressure center moves forward obviously, making the fairing with designed static stability appears un-stability features in the minus attack angles. The influence of the separation distance on fairing’s aerodynamic characteristics becomes weaker as the separation distance increases. Using a small positive angle as the initial separation attack angle is conducive to keep a stable attitude for the fairing, which is beneficial to separation security during the separation process.