Deficiencies of streamline tracing techniques for designing hypersonic inlets and potential solutions

This work focuses on streamline tracing techniques for designing hypersonic inlets, and two deficiencies were discovered.Firstly, constriction ratios of stream-traced inlets are unpredictable and uncontrollable, which may affect the integration with airframes and combustors. Secondly, stream-traced inlets cannot exactly inherit properties from a basic flowfield through which they are traced. Then flow mechanisms underneath these phenomena were clarified. It was made clearly that properties of flow tubes captured by an inlet are what essentially determines constriction ratios as well as performances of inlets. Based on flow mechanisms, the method of calculating along streamlines(MCS) was proposed, which makes it possible to evaluate inlet performances directly. At last, optimization design methodologies were introduced to make inlet constriction ratios controllable,and simultaneously improve inlet performances as much as possible.

Aerodynamic configuration integration design of hypersonic cruise aircraft with inward-turning inlets

In this work, a novel airframe/propulsion integration design method of the wing-body configuration for hypersonic cruise aircraft is proposed, where the configuration is integrated with inward-turning inlets. With the help of this method, the major design concern of balancing the aerodynamic performance against the requirements for efficient propulsion can be well addressed. A novel geometric parametrically modelling method based on a combination of patched class and shape transition（CST） and COONs surface is proposed to represent the configuration, especially a complex configuration with an irregular inlet lip shape. The modelling method enlarges the design space of components on the premise of guaranteeing the configuration integrity via special constraints imposed on the interface across adjacent surfaces. A basic flow inside a cone shaped by a dual-inflection-point generatrix is optimized to generate the inward-turning inlet with improvements of both compression efficiency and flow uniformity. The performance improvement mechanism of this basic flow is the compression velocity variation induced by the variation of the generatrix slope along the flow path. At the design point, numerical simulation results show that the lift-to-drag ratio of the configuration is as high as 5.2 and the inlet works well with a high level of compression efficiency and flow uniformity. The design result also has a good performance on off-design conditions. The achievement of all the design targets turns out that the integration design method proposed in this paper is efficient and practical.

Effects of trips on the oscillatory flow of an axisymmetric hypersonic inlet with downstream throttle

Experimental investigations are conducted on an axisymmetric hypersonic inlet to evaluate the effects of trips on oscillatory flows. The model exit is throttled with a fixed block to generate oscillatory flows at a freestream Mach number of 6 in a conventional wind tunnel and a shock tunnel. Schlieren imaging and pressure measurements are adopted to record unsteady flow features.Results indicate that trips with a 1 mm thickness prominently suppress external separations, shorten oscillatory cycles, and modify pressure magnitudes. Trips can reduce the upstream movement ranges of separated shocks from nose regions to locations axially 142 mm downstream. The oscillatory cycles are shortened from 3.75 ms to 3.25 ms and from 4 ms to 3.13 ms in two facilities.Tripped cases generally exhibit higher pressure magnitudes than those of untripped cases, of which the increment is up to 21 times the freestream static pressure for the farthest downstream transducer in the shock tunnel. The effects of trips are related to the streamwise vortexes in wake flows, in which interactions between external separations modify the separated flow patterns and enhance the sustainment of the forebody boundary layers to backpressure. Flow processes causing increments of oscillatory frequencies and pressure magnitudes are analyzed, while the flow mechanisms dominating the processes still need to be clarified in the future.

Design method for hypersonic bump inlet based on transverse pressure gradient

Transverse pressure gradient(TPG)is one of the key factors influencing the boundary layer airflow diversion in a bump inlet.This paper proposes a novel TPG-based hypersonic bump inlet design method.This method consists of two steps.First,a parametric optimization approach is employed to design a series of 2D inlets with various compression efficiencies.Then,according to the prescribed TPG,the optimized inlets are placed in different osculating planes to generate a 3D bump inlet.This method provides a means to directly control the aerodynamic parameters of the bump rather than the geometric parameters.By performing this method to a hypersonic chin inlet,a long and wide bump surface is formed in the compression wall,which leads to good integration of the bump/inlet.Results show that a part of the near-wall boundary layer flow is diverted by the bump,resulting in a slight decrease in the mass flow but a significant improvement in the total pressure recovery.In addition,the starting ability is significantly improved by adding the bump surface.Analysis reveals that the bump has a 3D rebuilding effect on the large-scale separation bubble of the unstarted inlet.Finally,a mass flow correction is performed on the designed bump inlet to increase the mass flow to full airflow capture.The results show that the mass flow rate of the corrected bump inlet reaches up to 0.9993,demonstrating that the correction method is effective.

Effects of bump parameters on hypersonic inlet starting performance

Unstart is an unwanted flow phenomenon in a hypersonic inlet. When an unstart occurs, the captured airflow flowing through the engine significantly decreases with strong unsteady characteristics, which may lead to thrust loss or even combustor flameout. In this study, various bump configurations were designed to be integrated with a hypersonic inlet to improve its starting ability. A bump was defined as an integrated 3D compression surface installed upstream of the inlet entrance. The starting processes of these bump inlets were numerically simulated to investigate the effect laws and flow mechanisms of the bump parameters. Tests on bump height revealed that the starting performance could be significantly improved by increasing bump height, with the starting Mach number decreasing by 0.55 for the inlet with the highest bump. The high bump facilitates the side movement of the subsonic flow in the separation zone, which leads to a small separation bubble, thus accelerating the starting process. Further, the starting ability can be improved by designing a relatively wide bump, which results in a decline in the starting Mach number by 0.44. When the bump has the same or greater width compared with the airflow capture range, a growing spillage along the transverse direction can be formed so that the airflow in the separation bubble can be easily excluded, improving the starting ability.

A parameterized geometry design method for inward turning inlet compatible waverider

Intensive studies have been carried out on generations of waverider geometry and hypersonic inlet geometry. However, integration efforts of waverider and related air-intake system are restricted majorly around the X43A-like or conical flow field induced configuration, which adopts mainly the two-dimensional air-breathing technology and limits the judicious visions of developing new aerodynamic profiles for hypersonic designers. A novel design approach for integrating the inward turning inlet with the traditional parameterized waverider is proposed. The proposed method is an alternative means to produce a compatible configuration by linking the off-the-shelf results on both traditional waverider techniques and inward turning inlet techniques. A series of geometry generations and optimization solutions is proposed to enhance the lift-to-drag ratio. A quantitative but efficient aerodynamic performance evaluation approach （the hypersonic flow panel method） with lower computational cost is employed to play the role of objective function for opti- mization purpose. The produced geometry compatibility with a computational fluid dynamics （CFD） solver is also verified for detailed flow field investigation. Optimization results and other numerical validations are obtained for the feasibility demonstration of the proposed method.