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>
>> Seeing how the discussion has been much about the physics of supersonic
>> shockwaves, does anyone know how NASA performed this sonic boom
>> attenuation?
>>
>> http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0309/06supersonic/
>
> To me it looks like they are doing several things. First, at the nose they
> are bringing the expansion waves as close as possible to the compression
> (bow) wave. The lower conic section of the nose is bullet shaped.
> Initially, creating a stronger shock wave, immediately followed by
> expansion waves. Essentially, separating the air with a compression wave
> (the easy part, increasing pressure gradient), followed by a broad area of
> expansion waves (the hard part, decreasing pressure gradient) to turn the
> flow back parallel to the velocity vector. Creating as small a hole in the
> air as possible.
>
> There is a reason bullets are the shaped the way they are. The supersonic
> areodynamicist seem to be rediscovering this.
Seems to me, the answer might go something like this.
A reverse camber wing for supersonic flight.
The wings of a supersonic aircraft needs to have reverse camber, similar in
shape to the bullet. On the bottom of the wing, first generating a strong
compression shock to increase the pressure, then the entire length of the
wing is an expansion fan to bringing the pressure back to atmospheric and
the flow back parallel to the velocity vector.
The top of the wing is essentially flat, an expansion shock at the leading
edge, followed by a long flat or a slight expansion fan surface. The goal
being to keep the flow laminar and attached. Maybe even a slight
compression fan at the trailing edge to keep the boundary layer from going
turbulent.
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The entire wing/body should be of similar shape, a short but large
compression shock followed by a very long expansion fan to dissipate the
shock wave used to increase the pressure on the lower side of the
wing/body.
One implication of this design would be that the lift on the supersonic
wing would move froward towards the quarter cord, similar to where the lift
on a subsonic wing is. This would be nice in that control of the aircraft
would be similar in both subsonic flight and upside down supersonic flight.
One of the bad implications would be increased drag because of the larger
compression shock at the leading edge of the wing (cosine losses). This
could be reduced or kept at a minimum by keeping the wing as thin as
possible.
If the passengers complain, it might be a good idea to roll them right side
up inside the fuselage. And, if that's too much trouble, the aircraft could
just be designed for supersonic flight and just leave the subsonic portion
inefficient
If you think of Bernoulli, the goal of subsonic flight is to decrease the
pressure on the upper surface of the airfoil. But, the goal for supersonic
flight is the opposite, increase the pressure on the lower surface of the
airfoil. This becomes more and more important as the aircraft flys higher
and higher, as the pressure can't be decreased past zero.
Craig Fink
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