Numerical simulation of fluid flow and aerodynamic characteristic analysis of a semi blunt 9mm bullet

This work involves the study of semi blunt 9mm bullet when it comes to external ballistics and fluid flow over the bullet by considering speed at different Mach numbers such as subsonic, sonic, supersonic and hypersonic. This work also involves the study of strong shock waves generated on the bullet which results in flow separation and forms the low pressure drag, high temperature, reduction in velocity at the boundaries of the bullet and co-efficient of drag. Bullet surface is created by using CATIA vR20 modeling software. Meshing of the pressure far field is done by using HYPERMESH v10 software, and various aerodynamic constrains are simulated using CFD technique as FLUENT v6.3.2.6 software with needed tools. Thus, boundary layer is simulated numerically using pressure, temperature and velocity contours. The study reveals that at subsonic speed bow shock waves are appeared at the nose of the bullet which is curved in nature. It also indicated that with the increase in Mach number, magnitude of shock waves increases and results in flow separation. It is observed that flow separation occurs at sonic speed. At hypersonic speed, strong entropy layer is formed and is highly curved in nature.