Automatic procedures for computing complete configuration geometry from individual component descriptions

IntroductionThc wave-drag format (ref. 1) is a convenientway to describe a rough-cut airplane geometry formaking a rapid linear analysis of the configurationaerodynamics. The format is simple and concise,and it allows changes to be made easily. One reasonfor this simplicity is that the individual configurationcomponents are described as disjoint surfaces. Thislimitation is of little consequence for linear analysiscodes, but nonlinear codes require a complete surfacedescription to establish a computational grid.The purpose of this paper is to describe automaticprocedures for completing the geometry, beginningwith a wave-drag geometry description. A methodfor automatically calculating the wing-fuselage inter-section line was presented in reference 2. Thatmethod is limited to configurations for which thefuselage has circular cross sections. Here, a proce-dure is described that computes the intersection oftwo wing-like surfaces. These two procedures permitone to compute all the intersection lines and therebycomplete the geometry for a configuration that in-cludes a canard, a horizontal tail, nacelles, pylons,and a vertical fin on the fuselage or on the wing.Symbols