Parametric Study on Waverider Configurations at Low-supersonic Speed for Low-boom Supersonic Transport

Abstract

Research on supersonic transport seeks to overcome two main challenges, to mitigate sonic boom and improve aerodynamic performance, in order to become environmentally viable and economically practicable. To achieve these goals, this research proposes a waverider configuration to solve the challenge of designing commercial supersonic aircraft. The waverider is famous for providing a higher lift-to-drag ratio than that provided by other conventional designs for supersonic and hypersonic flights. The study of three types of supersonic waveriders, cone-derived, power-law, and osculatingcone waverider, is introduced for low-supersonic designs. The flight condition includes a speed of Mach 1.5 at an altitude of 18,000m. An unstructured grid with an inviscid Euler equation solver is used to calculate the flow field of the vehicle. The ground noise post-processing uses an augmented Burgers equation solver to assist in far-field signature evaluation. The result of a cone-derived waverider provided significant volume with low overpressure, while the power-law waverider showed the advantages of aerodynamic performance and ample design space. The osculating-cone waverider obtained the merits from both the cone-derived and power-law waveriders. The waverider is expected to have a quality that satisfies the design objectives of supersonic aircraft: high aerodynamic performance and sonic boom mitigation.