Investigation of the effect of nose shape and geometry at supersonic speeds for missile performance optimisation

Abstract

This paper investigated and analysed the influence of the missile nose shapes and geometry on the drag force coefficients at supersonic Mach numbers ranging from 2 to 5. The nose shape investigation includes a pointed cone, pointed ogive, and blunt cone with a constant length and diameter of cylindrical afterbody. Subsequently, the nose length was manipulated to investigate how the nose geometry with different fineness ratios affected each drag component. The drag force coefficient and its components were determined using a program called MATLAB_Aerody, in which a semi-empirical approach was implemented for the calculations. The program was validated against the semi-empirical results with existing theoretical and experimental results. The comparison showed a maximum error of 3.6%. The results of the nose shape analysis show that a sharper and more slender nose with a pointy tip produces a minimal drag. Nose bluntness, however, creates considerable additional drag force due to a higher wave drag coefficient by forming detached or bow shock waves. At supersonic speeds, increasing the fineness ratio significantly reduces the drag force by drastically decreasing the wave drag coefficient with a marginal increase in the skin friction coefficients. However, the results show an insignificant additional gain for the skin friction drag and a reduction in the wave drag coefficient when the nose has a fineness ratio beyond 4.5. Furthermore, the results from both analyses show that the base drag coefficient is invariant with the nose shape and the fineness ratio. Therefore, a better missile performance can be achieved with a sharper and more slender nose shape with a higher fineness ratio.