Design of a novel integrated structure considering heat-transport and load-bearing capacities for hypersonic vehicles

The hypersonic vehicle encounters severe aerodynamic force and heat concentration effects. The excessive heat should be transported from the high-temperature region to safer and low-temperature regions. Thus, load-bearing structures with the integration of heat transport function are entirely necessary and well in line with the development of hypersonic techniques. In this work, an integrated structure of a hypersonic wing is designed and a design process considering the heat-transport and load-bearing capacities is developed. The design process contains the integrated topology optimization of force and heat transfer paths and the size optimization of the integrated structure. The optimal topological paths are obtained by the density-variable optimization method with a unified objective function of the minimum mechanical and thermal compliances, and two weight factors are adopted in the objective function to consider the force and heat effects. The optimal structural sizes are obtained based on the reconstruction, parameterization and optimization of such paths with objective of the minimum mass. An integrated structure with 8 beams and 15 ribs is developed and temperature reductions of more than 500 ℃ can be obtained under certain conditions.