Shock control bump optimization for a low sweep supercritical wing

Abstract

Shock control bumps are a promising technique in reducing wave drag of civil transport aircraft flying at transonic speeds. This paper investigates the optimization of 3D shock control bumps on a supercritical wing with a sweep angle of 16° at the 1/4 chord. A similar supercritical wing with a higher sweep angle of 24.5° at the 1/4 chord has been adopted as a baseline for the study. Numerical results show that the drag coefficient of the low sweep wing with the optimized 3D shock control bumps is reduced below that for the high sweep wing, indicating shock control bumps can be used as an effective means to reduce the wave drag caused by reducing the wing sweep angle. From the point of view of the wing structure design, lower sweep angle will also bring the benefits of weight reduction, resulting in further fuel reduction.