Aerodynamics analysis of supersonic biplane using computational fluid dynamics

Abstract

For the development of a supersonic transport aircraft, there are two major challenges viz. fuel efficiency and the sonic boom. Due to the high intensity of the shock waves generated in front of the supersonic aircraft, the drag value is significantly high with a reduced lift. The high value of the drag requires more thrust or power from the engine to fly at supersonic speed, hence the efficiency is decreased. When an aircraft moving with the supersonic speeds in air, generates a large value of pressure ahead of the body and form high pressure bubble near the body, these high pressure bubbles will separate from the surface and generates noise, called the sonic boom. The intensity of the sonic boom is very large and it can harm the people on the ground. This restricts the application of supersonic transport aircraft fly over the surface of the ground. These effects can be minimized by reducing the strength of shock waves formed in supersonic flight. The Busemann biplane concept is very famous due to its shock cancellation and shock-interaction effect and nearly shock free supersonic flight is possible at its design Mach number. At off-design Mach numbers however, the performance of the Busemann biplane is poor due to flow choking and incomplete wave cancellation.