Abstract:The airframe-integrated linear-spike nozzle concept applied to an external nozzle for high-speed aircraft was evaluated with regard to the thrust augmentation capability and the trim balance. The main focus was on the vehicle aftbody. The baseline airframe geometry was first premised to be a hypersonic waverider design. The baseline aftbody case had an external nozzle comprised of a simple divergent nozzle and was hypothetically replaced with linear-spike external nozzle configurations. Performance evaluation was mainly conducted by considering the nozzle thrust generated by the pressure distribution on the external nozzle surface at the aftbody portion calculated by computer simulation at a given cruise condition with zero angle of attack. The thrust performance of the proposed linear-spike external nozzle concept was nearly equivalent to that of the baseline geometry though the wall surface area can be significantly reduced. This is because the design of the proposed concept had a compression wall for the exhaust flow, which resulted in increasing the wall pressure. The configuration with the boattail exhibited a potential for further improvement in thrust performance. The trim balance evaluation showed that the aerodynamic center location appeared as acceptable. Thus, benefits were obtained by employing the airframe-integrated linear-spike external nozzle concept.
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