Modeling the effect of head drag reduction for a cylinder with a protruding disk at high mach numbers

Various approaches to modeling super- and hypersonic turbulent airflow past cylindrical bodies with a nontraditional nose in the form of a protruding rod-supported disk have been compared. Aeroballistic experiments on a light-gas propulsion setup were combined with wind tunnel tests and numerical simulations using VP2/3 program package based on multiblock computational techniques and a model of shear stress transport with flow-line curvature corrections. The phenomenon of the head and wave drag reduction for the stepped body is analyzed at high Mach numbers (up to 10) and variation of the supporting rod length under conditions of existence of the frontal flow separation zone.