Special Issue: Flow Control and Thermal Management

Drag and heat reduction in a hypersonic turbulent boundary layer via wall blowing

  • Jinhui CHEN ,
  • Wanting LIU ,
  • Zhiyuan LI ,
  • Haoyi CAI ,
  • Jie WU
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  • 1.School of Aerospace Engineering,Huazhong University of Science and Technology,Wuhan 430074,China
    2.System Design Institute of Hubei Aerospace Technology Academy,Wuhan 430048,China
E-mail: jiewu@hust.edu.cn

Received date: 2026-02-06

  Revised date: 2026-02-26

  Accepted date: 2026-03-16

  Online published: 2026-03-19

Abstract

Hypersonic vehicles are subjected to severe aerodynamic drag and thermal loads during practical flight. To address the issues of high skin-friction drag and intense aerodynamic heating under hypersonic turbulent boundary layer conditions, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is performed to investigate the drag-and heat-reduction effects of wall micro-blowing through small pores on a Mach number of 6 flat-plate turbulent boundary layer. By comparing smooth-wall and porous-wall configurations, the streamwise distributions of the skin-friction coefficient and wall temperature are analyzed. The results show that wall micro-blowing can simultaneously reduce skin-friction drag and wall thermal load, with the maximum local drag-reduction and heat-reduction rates reaching 17.8% and 7.6%, respectively.Further analysis of the flow-control mechanisms reveals that micro-blowing lifts the mean velocity profile of the turbulent boundary layer, redistributes near-wall low-speed fluid toward the outer region, and is accompanied by enhanced streamwise velocity fluctuations and shear Reynolds stress. Turbulence statistics indicate that micro-blowing intensifies the intermittency of near-wall turbulence, increases the occurrence probability of ejection events, and strengthens the outward transport of low-momentum fluid, which contributes to drag reduction while effectively alleviating wall heat load. These results demonstrate that micro-blowing through small pores has promising potential for simultaneous drag and heat reduction in hypersonic turbulent boundary layers.

Cite this article

Jinhui CHEN , Wanting LIU , Zhiyuan LI , Haoyi CAI , Jie WU . Drag and heat reduction in a hypersonic turbulent boundary layer via wall blowing[J]. ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA, 2026 , 47(13) : 533473 -533473 . DOI: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2026.33473

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