Abstract
Supersonic flight for commercial aviation is gaining a renewed interest, especially for business aviation, which demands the reduction of flight times for transcontinental routes. So far, the promise of civil supersonic flight has only been afforded by the Concorde and Tupolev T-144 aircraft. However, little or nothing can be found about the aerodynamics of these aeroshapes, the knowledge of which is extremely interesting to obtain before the development of the next-generation high-speed aircraft. Therefore, the present research effort aimed at filling in the lack of data on a Concorde-like aeroshape by focusing on evaluating the aerodynamics of a complete aircraft configuration under low-speed conditions, close to those of the approach and landing phase. In this framework, the present paper focuses on the CFD study of the longitudinal aerodynamics of a Concorde-like, tailless, delta-ogee wing seamlessly integrated onto a Sears–Haack body fuselage, suitable for civil transportation. The drag polar at a Mach number equal to 0.24 at a 30 m altitude was computed for a wide range of angles of attack (0∘,60∘), with a steady RANS simulation to provide the feedback of the aerodynamic behaviour post breakdown, useful for a preliminary design. The vortex-lift contribution to the aerodynamic coefficients was accounted for in the longitudinal flight condition. The results were in agreement with the analytical theory of the delta-wing. Flowfield sensitivity to the angle of attack at near-stall and post-stall flight attitudes confirmed the literature results. Furthermore, the longitudinal static stability was addressed. The CFD simulation also evidenced a static instability condition arising for 15∘≤α≤20∘ due to vortex breakdown, which was accounted for.
Highlights
High-speed flight represents the frontier of passenger transportation as it allows a remarkable flight time reduction, especially on long-range intercontinental routes
The perfect gas model was used for air, with specific heat at constant pressure equal to cp = 1006 J/kgK and viscosity provided by the Sutherland law
The aircraft configuration featured a Concorde-like aeroshape with a sharp leading edge delta-ogee wing, seamlessly integrated on a Sears–Haack body fuselage. This analysis was motivated by the renewed interest of the world market in civilian supersonic transportation and the need to assess the aircraft aerodynamic performance of a low-aspect-ratio wing under very-low-speed conditions
Summary
High-speed flight represents the frontier of passenger transportation as it allows a remarkable flight time reduction, especially on long-range intercontinental routes. Very little or nothing can be found about the aerodynamic data of delta-winged aeroshapes with a fuselage or even with a fuselage and tail This is especially true for the Concorde aeroshape, which having already flown, is extremely interesting to investigate envisioning the development of next-generation high-speed aircraft. The investigations were performed with fully turbulent, three-dimensional CFD simulations carried out at several AoAs. In particular, this research effort focused on the longitudinal steady-state aerodynamic performances and static stability appraisal, at verylow-speed conditions of a fully representative supersonic aircraft configuration for civil transportation. Delta-winged aircraft attain a very high AoA, larger than that of conventional transonic aircraft This flight condition can be very critical, especially from the aerodynamic point of view. Flow unsteadiness associated with breakdown was not considered here, a preliminary evaluation to investigate the effect of breakdown on the global aerodynamic coefficient was performed
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