Efficient Prediction of the Temperature History of a Hypersonic Vehicle Throughout the Mission Trajectory with an Aerodynamic Thermal Load Element

Abstract

This work introduces an efficient approach for aero-thermo-mechanical analysis to predict the temperature history of a hypersonic vehicle during its full mission trajectory. The approach uses a recently proposed aerodynamic thermal load element, in which the effects of aerodynamic pressure and aerodynamic heating are efficiently considered using local piston theory and the Eckert reference temperature method, respectively. This element is implemented as a user-subroutine in commercial software to handle realistic models for the aero-thermo-mechanical analysis, such as the X-43A. A finite element model of the X-43A is constructed for a benchmark test. Using the model, an aero-thermo-mechanical analysis is carried out while considering the full mission trajectory of the X-43A. The predicted temperature results are compared with recorded flight test data from the X-43A. Additionally, the aero-thermo-mechanical behavior of the hypersonic vehicle is investigated according to various parameters. The investigation confirms that the approach can be efficiently used in the design of hypersonic vehicles with considerable savings in computational cost.