An Adjoint Method for the Calculation of Remote Sensitivities in Supersonic Flow

This paper presents an adjoint method for the calculation of remote sensitivities in supersonic flow. The goal is to develop a set of discrete adjoint equations and their corresponding boundary conditions in order to quantify the influence of geometry modifications on the pressure distribution at an arbitrary location within the domain of interest. First, this paper presents the complete formulation and discretization of the discrete adjoint equations. The special treatment of the adjoint boundary condition to obtain remote sensitivities is also discussed. Secondly, we present results that demonstrate the application of the theory to a three-dimensional remote inverse design problem using a low sweep biconvex wing and a highly swept blunt leading edge wing. Lastly, we present results that establish the added benefit of using an objective function that contains the sum of the remote inverse and drag minimization cost functions.