Abstract:

A new design method of the hypersonic forebody is present based on the waverider and liftbody concept. By means of this method and taking as reference the configuration of a certain hypersonic vehicle, the configuration of a new hypersonic vehicle is designed. Numerical simulation, optimization,and experiment are conducted on this vehicle, and the impact of thin gas on hypersonic vehicle configuration aerodynamics is also studied. Simulation investigation shows that the pre-compressed surface of the forebody can confine the high-pressure air into the bottom surface, so the waverider design objective is realized. The optimization results show that the ratio of width-to-span should be limited to 0.4-0.6, and that the lift-to-drag ratio have the in crease space of 3%~5%. DSMC program is developed to investigate the aerodynamic performance of hypersonic vehicles in near space. With the method, flows in transitional regions around the waverider are simulated in the near space region. Investigation shows that the lift-to-drag ratio is slightly decreased in near space but also in the region of high value.

Key words: waverider, aerodynamic configuration, numerical simulation, optimization, experiment, DSMC