Shock-free configurations in two-and three-dimensional transonic flow

Abstract

Efforts to replace Sobieczky's complicated analog computations of solutions to the hodograph equations by a fast elliptic solver in order to generate shock-free airfoil designs more effectively are described. The indirect design of airfoil and wing shapes that are free from shock waves even though the local flow velocity exceeds the speed of sound is described. The problem of finding an airfoil in two dimensional, irrotational flow that has a prescribed pressure distribution is as addressed. Sobieczky's suggestion to use a fictitious gas for finding shock-free airfoils directly in the physical plane was the basis for a more efficient procedure for achieving the same end.