A low-boom and low-drag design method for supersonic aircraft and its applications on airfoils

Abstract

Sonic boom reduction has been an urgent need for the development of future supersonic transport, because of the heavy damage of noise pollution. This paper provides a novel concept for supersonic aircraft to reduce the sonic boom and drag coefficient, wherein a suction slot near the leading edge and an injection slot near the trailing edge on the airfoil suction surface are opened. To make sure of a zero net mass flux flow control, the mass flow sucked in near the leading edge is equal to the mass flow injected near the trailing edge. The diamond and NACA0008 airfoils are adopted as the baseline airfoil to verify the capability of the proposed design method. The effects of the suction and injection location, the suction and injection slot size, the mass flow rate and the attack angle on the ground boom signature and drag coefficient are studied in detail. The results show that the optimized airfoils with the suction and injection have benefits in both sonic boom reduction and wave drag reduction. And the reduction of the sonic boom intensity is more sensitive to the injection near the trailing edge than the suction near the leading edge. From the viewpoint of aerodynamics, opening the suction and injection slots will have no adverse effect on the aerodynamic performances of the supersonic aircraft and even increase the lift-drag ratio under some circumstances. For energy saving, the suction and injection slots can be selectively opened, which are opened when the supersonic aircraft flies over the city but are closed when the aircraft flies over the sea.

Review of Sonic Boom Prediction and Reduction Methods for Next Generation of Supersonic Aircraft

“…Another system for sonic boom reduction was presented in 2021 by Ye et al [224]. It consists of equipping the wing leading edge with a suction slot and the trailing edge with an injection slot as shown in Figure 38.…”

“…In the end, in 2021, another reduction concept was presented by Ye et al [224]. The idea consists of equipping the wing leading edge with a suction slot and the trailing edge with an injection slot.…”

A Review of the Current Regulatory Framework for Supersonic Civil Aircraft: Noise and Emissions Regulations

“…Recently, other strategies have been patented, and their nuisance reduction potential shall be properly investigated before introducing new regulations. These novel approaches include the introduction of a nose spike [91,92], the adoption of shock wave dispersion techniques [93], the introduction of anti-boom jet streams [94], suction/injections wing slots [95], sonic boom suppression techniques using pulse energy addition [96], etc.…”

On the drag reduction mechanism of hypersonic turbulent boundary layers subject to heated wall blowing

“…Studies have shown that for a subsonic aircraft in cruise state, the friction drag of turbulent boundary layer accounts for 50% of the total drag, and every 1% reduction in drag can reduce fuel consumption by 0.75% [2]. Even under flight conditions dominated by shock drag in a supersonic/hypersonic flow, the turbulent friction drag still accounts for about 30% of the total drag [3,4]. Therefore, using appropriate flow control techniques to achieve the drag reduction of the turbulent boundary layer will greatly increase the range of the hypersonic flight vehicle under the same fuel consumption, which is of great significance for reducing the carbon emission content as well.…”