Novel Aerodynamic Compensation Pitot - Static Tube for Application in Subsonic and Supersonic Flight Regimes

An aerodynamic compensation pitot -static tube has been developed for the flight regime of modern fighter aircraft ( Mach < 2). The pitot -static tube profile has been designed so th at in the subsonic regime it aerodynamically compensates for the position error in pressure coefficient (Cp) due to presence of the aircraft, while in the supersonic regime it gives the desired zero compensation. The unique aspect of the new design is that it is able to provide the desired compensation in both subsonic (negative Cp) and supersonic (zero Cp) re gimes at same axial location. At this axial location the local Cp gradient is small in the subsonic regime and is close to zero in the supersonic regi me so that in practical application this pitot static tube would be less sensitive to manufacturing tolerances. The new design pitot -tube can be used effectively to compensate for Cp position errors of up to + 0. 1 in the subsonic regime by non -dimensional “ stretching” of the basic profile while maintaining zero Cp in the supersonic regime. Computational Fluid Dynamics tools have been used in the design and analysis of the new pitot -static tub e. The effect of turbulence model and grid size on compute d results has been evaluated. The complete Mach number regime (Mach < 2) has been computationally explored for different profiles resulting for m “stretching” of the basic profile in order to validate the new design’s capability to compensate position errors in Cp o f up to + 0. 1. In the end a design methodology is also presented where a specific pitot -static tube profile can be extracted from the general non -dimensional profile in order to aerodynamically compensate a known position error in Cp.