A Hypersonic Aircraft Optimization Tool with Strong Aerothermoelastic Coupling

The design and optimization of hypersonic aircraft is severely impacted by the high temperatures encountered during flight as they can lead to high thermal stresses and a significant reduction in material strength and stiffness. This reduction in rigidity of the structure requires innovative structural concepts and a stronger focus on aerothermoelastic deformations in the early design and optimization phase of the design cycle. This imposes the need for a closer coupling of the aerodynamic, thermal and structural design tools than is currently in practice. The paper presents a multi-disciplinary, closely coupled optimization suite that is suitable for preliminary design in the hypersonic regime. The time varying temperature distribution is applied through an equilibrium analysis, and is coupled to the aerodynamics through the Tranair® solver. An analysis of the effect that the aerothermodynamic coupling has on the sizing of the aircraft is given, along with the effect of skin buckling. It is shown that the coupling of the aerothermodynamics drives the sizing of the structure and therefore must be considered for hypersonic applications.

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