A rapid aerodynamics/propulsion analysis method for hypersonic flight vehicle MDO

Due to the unique aspect of tight-coupled disciplinary interactions, air-breathing Hypersonic Flight Vehicle (HFV) inspires Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) during design process. The large scale variables during conceptual phase of HFV lead to huge computational burden of MDO, much of that is induced by aerodynamics/propulsion coupled analysis. Limited by computational and modeling capability, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can't directly be used to support MDO. This paper presents a rapid Aerodynamics/Propulsion analysis method for scramjet-powered HFV. By carefully defining the interface of airframe and scramjet, coupled iterative analysis process is avoided. Panel based engineering methods was used to predict aerodynamic properties, and quasi-one dimensional method to predict propulsion properties. Synthesizing the results of aerodynamics and propulsion analysis, total force/moment can be gained. Based on the analysis model built, a software tool named HFV-APA was developed to support MDO process. An example of Hypersonic Cruise Missile (HCM) configuration was chosen to validate this method, and compared with CFD analysis method. It only takes few minutes with this method to analysis one condition (Mach number, angle of attack, etc), whereas tens of hours with CFD method.