Study on aerodynamic features of rod thrust vector control for physical applications

Abstract

Mechanical thrust vector control is a classical and important branch in the vectoring control field, offering an extremely reliable control effect. In this article, a simple technology using a cylindrical rod has been numerically investigated to achieve jet controls for three-dimensional conical axisymmetric nozzles. Complex flow phenomena caused by the cylindrical rod on a flat plate and in a converging–diverging nozzle are elucidated with the purpose of a profound understanding of this technique for physical applications. Published experimental data are used to validate the dependability of current CFD results. A grid sensitivity study is carried through and analyzed. The result section discusses the impacts of three factors on performance, involving the rod penetration height, rod location, and nozzle pressure ratio. Significant vectoring performance variations and flow topologies descriptions are illuminated in full detail. When the rod penetration height changes, this technique has an effective control range, namely H/R_t ≤ 0.4. In this effective control range, the vectoring angle and efficiency increase and the thrust coefficient decreases with a deeper rod insertion. As the rod location moves downstream towards the nozzle exit, the vectoring angle increases and the thrust coefficient decays. Moreover, the direction of jet deflection remarkably varies for diverse rod locations. While the nozzle pressure ratio increases, the vectoring angle initially increases to reach the maximum level and then decays slightly. Meanwhile, the thrust coefficient continuously increases.