The Natural Flow Wing-Design Concept

A wing-design study has been conducted on a 65 swept leading-edge delta wing in which the wing geometry was modi ed to take advantage of the naturally occurring ow that forms over a slender wing in a supersonic ow eld. Three-dimensional nonlinear analysis methods were used in the study which was divided into three parts|preliminary design, initial design, and nal design. In the preliminary design, the wing planform, the design conditions, and the near-conical wing-design concept were derived, and a baseline standard wing (conventional airfoil distribution) and a baseline near-conical wing were chosen. During the initial analysis, a full-potential ow solver was employed to determine the aerodynamic characteristics of the baseline standard delta wing and to investigate modi cations of the airfoil thickness, leading-edge radius, airfoil maximum-thickness position, and wing upper to lower surface asymmetry on the baseline near-conical wing. The nal design employed an Euler solver to analyze the best wing con gurations found in the initial design and to extend the study of wing asymmetry to develop a more re ned wing. Bene ts resulting from each modi cation are discussed, and a nal \natural ow" wing geometry has been designed that provides an improvement in aerodynamic performance compared with that of a baseline conventional uncambered wing, linear-theory cambered wing, and near-conical wing.