FAST METHOD AND AN INTEGRATED CODE FOR SONIC BOOM PREDICTION OF SUPERSONIC COMMERCIAL AIRCRAFT

Sonic boom prediction plays a significant role in the preliminary design of next-generation supersonic commercial aircraft. There is an enormous demand of sonic boom evaluations in a preliminary design stage, during which a suitable configuration needs to be determined through extensive modifications and evolutions. Therefore, it is of great interest to develop a robust, efficient and reasonably accurate sonic boom prediction method. A modified linear method is developed for sonic boom prediction to address the enormous computational cost associated with preliminary design. Aiming at improving prediction accuracy, a more reasonable method for calculating equivalent area distribution is applied. To be specific, calculation method of equivalent area distribution due to volume and lift is presented, which can improve the accuracy of the prediction. An integrated code named FA-Boom for fast sonic boom prediction is developed and its accuracy and efficiency is validated by comparison with high-fidelity result as well as experimental data.