Progress made during the first two American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Sonic Boom Prediction Workshops for calculating near field signatures of supersonic aircraft

Abstract

The American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Sonic Boom Workshops examine the international state of the art in sonic boom prediction of supersonic aircraft. A summary is provided for the first and second workshops held in 2014 and 2017. The nearfield CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) cases from both workshops are described. They include a range of simple to complex configurations. The first workshop used models with N-wave, flat-top, and shaped ground signatures. The second workshop used models with quieter shaped ground signatures. To assess state of the art in nearfield CFD prediction, signatures are gathered from the international participants. These nearfield signatures are propagated to the ground with an augmented Burgers equation method and noise metrics are calculated. Statistics of the noise metrics are utilized to identify outliers for further examination. Comparisons are also made to wind tunnel measurements through validation metrics where available. The convergence of these metrics with grid refinement is also documented. This allows the determination of state of the art for nearfield sonic boom prediction and documents progress made between the two workshops.