Design and Test of the UW-5006 Transonic Natural-Laminar-Flow Wing

Abstract

DOI: 10.2514/1.40932 A transonic natural-laminar-flow wing design procedure has been set up, integrating a parametric geometry model with several analysis tools. A direct design strategy has been applied and three levels of aerodynamic analysis have been used: a full-potential method (with which to rapidly iterate to obtain the target pressure distribution), an Euler solution coupled with a boundary-layer solver and a semi-empirical stability analysis method (for an intermediate evaluation that is able to include the laminar flow extension), and a full Navier–Stokes analysis with fixed transition (for a final verification of the design quality). A transonic natural-laminar-flow wing suitable for business aviation able to perform at least 40% of laminar flow in cruise with acceptable wave drag at Mach 0.78 has been designed and tested at flight Reynolds numbers. The laminar flow has been verified by infrared cameras.