Experimental and numerical analysis of the structure of pseudo-shock systems in laval nozzles with parallel side walls

Detailed numerical and experimental investigations of pseudo-shock systems in a Laval nozzle with parallel side walls are carried out. The location of the pseudo-shock system is defined in this system of two choked Laval nozzles by the ratio of the critical cross sections A₂^*/A₁^*, the stagnation pressure loss across the shock system and viscous losses. The wall pressure distributions and high-speed schlieren videos recorded in the experiments are compared to the results of a steady and an unsteady numerical simulation. For the steady case, good agreement is found between the calculated and measured shock structure and pressure distribution along the primary nozzle wall, except for a remaining slight deviation in the shock position. For the unsteady case, in which asymmetric shock configurations are observed, deviations of the results with respect to the stochastic wall attachment of the shock system are given which indicate the necessity of further investigations on that topic.