Progress and challenges of next generation green supersonic civil aircraft

Abstract

After decades of development, the design technology of high subsonic civil aircraft has been quite mature in terms of safety, economy, comfort and environmental friendly. But for trans-continental and trans-oceanic travel, the flight time up to more than ten hours is still too long, and it becomes the bottleneck in the comfort and rapidity of long-distance travel experience. In contrast, the design technology for supersonic civil aircraft (at least twice speed as fast as that of subsonic one) has been greatly improved, which can greatly shorten the duration in the air. Concorde, the 1st generation supersonic civil aircraft, putting into commercial operation in January 1976, was one of the greatest technological innovations of mankind at that time. But its weaknesses of high fuel consumption, unbearable noise level and pollution problem have seriously weakened the market competitiveness and finally led to the end of commercial operations. There were setbacks, but the technology development never stopped. Compared with that in the 1960s and 1970s, the theory level and practical level of aviation technology have been greatly improved with the help of achievements in fundamental science and technology area. The various technical bottlenecks that hindered the development of supersonic civil aircraft have been continuously alleviated or eliminated, and the technical conditions for the development of green supersonic civil aircraft have become increasingly mature. Since the 1990s, supersonic civil aircrafts have attracted great attention again and gradually become one of the research hotspots. The current concerns about the next generation supersonic civil aircraft cover a wide range, not only the normal demand of low resistance and low fuel consumption, but also some environmentally friendly features. The strength of sonic boom should be reduced to an acceptable level, and continue meet both the increasing noise standards around the airport community and low engine emission requirements. In China, on one hand, we started late but have made great progress in the research of supersonic civil aircraft, such as the fields of aerodynamic configuration, sonic boom prediction and its suppression technology, and supersonic drag reduction technology. And a wide range of independent tools for supersonic civil aircraft concept design, near-field/far-field sonic boom prediction, and multi- design-point/multi-objective aerodynamic configuration optimization design were developed. On the other hand, the supersonic commercial engine technology is still in a blank state, which is a key issue that restricts the development of China’s green supersonic civil aircraft. Compared with the current development level of supersonic civil aircraft design technology worldwide, there are still significant challenges to achieve supersonic flight with economically affordability and green feathers. But it is foreseeable that the next generation green supersonic civil aircraft could be expected before the end of the third decade of this century.