Investigation of the shape of the transverse contour of a conical three-dimensional body of minimal drag moving in rarefied gas

Abstract

The shape of bodies of minimal drag moving in rarefied gas in the entire range of flight heights is investigated at present on the basis of the use of local interaction models [1]. Corresponding theoretical investigations have been published in [2, 3] for the case of bodies of rotation and in [4] for three-dimensional winged bodies, and detailed numerical investigations have been carried out in [2, 5–7]. In the present paper, an analytic investigation is carried out for the purpose of determining the optimal shape of three-dimensional bodies with minimal drag in an intermediate region of flight heights in rarefied gas.