Constrained Aerodynamic Adjoint Optimisation of Supersonic Manoeuvre Wings

Supersonic manoeuvring aircraft are designed to be efficient during aerobatic or high-load flight conditions at supersonic speeds, but are also usually required to also be efficient at other flight conditions. For example, transonic and subsonic cruising and manoeuvring. Aerodynamic flow around wings at supersonic manoeuvring flight conditions can exhibit a complex variety of structures and patterns, presenting a unique challenge for aerodynamic design methods. This work aims to seek an understanding of the effect of these complex flow features on aerodynamic efficiency as well as develop optimisation methods to help find the most efficient geometries which balance these flow features to their benefit.
A lift-constrained adjoint optimisation strategy for supersonic manoeuvring wings has been presented and used to produce a minimum pressure-drag conical camber design for a 57 degree delta wing. The computational efficiency of this strategy has been compared with a similar strategy for the same optimisation problem, and the resulting designs from each process have been interrogated. The optimised conical wing design has been evaluated using RANS analysis and compared with a wing designed using an analytical method and a wing with zero camber.
The lift-constrained adjoint optimisation strategy has been applied to the camber design of two supersonic manoeuvre wing concepts and the resulting minimum pressure drag designs have been evaluated and compared using RANS analysis. Supersonic and transonic pitching moment constraints were then included in the optimisation problem in a novel design methodology, in an attempt to minimise pitch trim requirements at two design points whilst improving efficiency at the supersonic manoeuvring condition. The resulting designs were then evaluated using RANS at both supersonic and transonic speeds and compared with the minimum pressure drag design examples. The most favourable wing design was found to exhibit novel and desirable flight characteristics across a range of flight conditions.