Waverider Aerodynamic Configuration Design And Aerodynamic Performance Calculation

A waverider is a hypersonic or supersonic vehicle with a shock wave attached along its leading edge. This attached shock wave limits leakage from the lower flow region to the upper surface, thus allowing the potential for a high lift/drag ratio relative to conventional designs.The design method and basic aerodynamic characteristics are studied for cone-derived waverider in this paper. The detailed viscous effects are included within the optimization process using the reference temperature method. A non-linear simplex method is used to obtain the waverider configuration for the maximum lift/drag ratio at different Mach numbers. The results show that, for the optimized design waverider, there is an optimum shock wave angle at which the lift/drag ratio is maximum for the waverider derived from the conical flow, while the skin friction drag and wave drag are the same order of magnitude. It is also concluded that the volumetric efficiency and slenderness increase with the shock wave angle increase, while the optimum shock wave angle and maximum lift/drag ratio decrease with Mach number increase.Finally, three-dimensional numerical simulations are performed around waverider configurations to verify the design process implemented in this paper. These validation results show good agreement with those obtained during the design/optimization process.