Experimental Study of Supersonic Film Cooling on Curved Wall at Mach 6

Supersonic film cooling is commonly employed to mitigate intense heat loads on hypersonic vehicles during flight; however, the vehicle’s surface typically features concave or convex curvatures that complicate the flow and differentially affect cooling efficiency. This work carried out an infrared and schlieren experiment of supersonic cooling film with curved walls in a hypersonic high-temperature wind tunnel and characterized the influence of different wall configurations on the cooling efficiency of supersonic cooling film. Our results show that the supersonic cooling film can achieve a better cooling efficiency on the convex (CV) wall, but the cooling efficiency on the concave (CC) wall decreases. With the decrease of the radius of curvature, the cooling efficiency of the supersonic cooling film on the CV wall is enhanced, but it is weakened on the CC wall. In summary, this work advocates the application of the supersonic film cooling technique on CV walls, instead of CC walls. © 2025 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.