The influence of the downstream pressure on the shock wave reflection phenomenon in steady flows

The effect of the downstream pressure (defined here as the wake pressure be hind the tail of the reflecting wedge) on shock wave reflection in steady f lows is investigated both numerically and analytically The dependence of th e shock wave configurations on the downstream pressure is studied. In addit ion to the incident-shock-waveangle-induced hysteresis, which was discovere d a few years ago, a new downstream-pressure-induced hysteresis has been fo und to exist. The numerical study reveals that when the downstream pressure is sufficiently high, an inverse-Mach reflection wave configuration, which has so far been observed only in unsteady flows, can be also established i n steady flows. Very good agreement between the analytical predictions and the numerical results is found.