Aerothermodynamic Optimization of Aerospace Plane Airfoil Leading Edge

Chen Zhou,Zhijin Wang,Jiaoyang Zhi,Anatolii Kretov

doi:10.5028/jatm.v9i4.820

Abstract

Aiming to mitigate the aerodynamic heating during hypersonic re-entry, the aerothermodynamic optimization of aerospace plane airfoil leading edge is conducted. Lift-todrag ratio at landing condition is taken as a constraint to ensure the landing aerodynamic performance. First, airfoil profile is parametrically described to be more advantageous during the optimization process, and the Hicks-Henne type function is improved considering its application on the airfoil leading edge. Computational Fluid Dynamics models at hypersonic as well as landing conditions are then established and discussed. Design of Experiment technique is utilized to establish the surrogate model. Afterwards, the previously mentioned surrogate model is employed in combination with the Multi-Island Genetic Algorithm to perform the optimization procedure. NACA 0012 is taken as the baseline airfoil for case study. The results show that the peak heat flux of the optimal airfoil during hypersonic flight is reduced by 7.61% at the stagnation point, while the lift-to-drag remains almost unchanged under landing condition.

Highlights

Aerospace planes (ASP) encounter severe aerodynamic heating during the hypersonic phase of atmospheric re-entry
Since Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) plays a critical role in the aerospace industry, airfoil optimization has been widely studied during the design process of a winged vehicle
Various algorithms were employed for the aerodynamic optimization

Summary

Introduction

Aerospace planes (ASP) encounter severe aerodynamic heating during the hypersonic phase of atmospheric re-entry. Regarding the Space Shuttle, a double-delta wing configuration was adopted to optimize the hypersonic flight as well as to obtain a good lift-to-drag ratio for landing (Launius and Jenkins 2012). Li et al (2012) developed an efficient method using the response surface model and genetic algorithm to optimize the transonic airfoil. Xia and Chen (2015) performed the aerothermodynamic optimization of a hypersonic wing profile to decrease the maximum heat flux.

Results

Conclusion