New Supersonic Wing Far-Field Composite-Element Wave-Drag Optimization Method

Abstract

NASA and industry recently ended the High Speed Civil Transport program. The objective of the High Speed Civil Transport program was to develop critical technologies to support the potential development of viable supersonic commercial transport aircraft. The aerodynamic design development activities benefited greatly from the use of the prior design, analysis, and prediction methods as well as the understanding of the fundamental physics inherent in an efficient supersonic aircraft design. It was recognized that the critical strengths of the aerodynamic processes included the blending of the computational power offered by computational fluid dynamics methods with the fundamental knowledge and rapid design development and assessment capabilities inherent in the existing linear aerodynamic theory methods. Nonlinear design optimization studies are typically initiated with an initial optimized linear theory baseline configuration design. In this paper, a new supersonic linear theory wave-drag optimization methodology using far-field wave-drag methodology is introduced. The method is developed using the class-function/ shape-function transformation concept of an analytic scalar wing definition. The methodology is applied to an arrow-wing planform to illustrate its versatility as well as to demonstrate the usefulness of the class-function/shape-function transformation analytic wing concept for aerodynamic design optimization.