Hypersonic Laminar Heat Transfer and Boundary Layer Transition on Blunted Cones

Summary Measurements have been made of laminar and transitional heat transfer rate distribution on a 15° semi-vertex angle, spherically blunted, cone at Mach numbers 8·6, 10·6 and 13·0. The laminar results are compared with theoretical predictions and good agreement is obtained with a modified form of the analysis due to Lees. Using a development of the correlation of pressure distributions previously obtained by the author, a new correlation of experimental and theoretical heat transfer results is suggested. The effect of nose bluntness on boundary layer transition has been observed both from flow visualisation and heat transfer results. It is suggested that the main factor causing nose bluntness to influence transition is the adverse pressure gradient which is induced.