Computational study of curved shock-vortex interaction

The interaction between a curved shock wave and a compressible vortex is nu merically investigated. The investigation concentrates on the local deforma tion of the shock structure due to the shock-vortex interaction. The essent ially non-oscillatory (ENO) scheme is used to solve the unsteady two-dimens ional Euler equations. A curved shock wave is obtained by the diffraction o f an initially planar shock wave around a right-angled corner and then allo wed to interact with a strong compressible vortex superimposed on the now. The same vortex affects the shock wave differently depending on the placeme nt of the vortex because of the varying strength of the shock wave. This ef fect could range from a non-symmetric deformation of the shock wave to a lo cal disruption in the shock structure depending on the strength of the shoc k wave in the interaction region. This process leading to a local disruptio n in the shock structure is analyzed in detail. It is shown that such a dis ruption in the shock structure can be predicted by simple one-dimensional c onsiderations. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.