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Effect of forebody strakes on aerodynamic characteristics in sideslip and pitch of hypersonic aircraft configurations
Effect of rearward body strakes on transonic aerodynamic characteristics of unswept-wing fighter aircraft
Nonlinear lift and pressure distribution of slender conical bodies with strakes at low speed
The Langley 1/8-scale V/STOL model tunnel was used to qualitatively determine the flow fields associated with semi-span close coupled canard wing and strake wing models. Small helium filled bubbles were injected upstream of the models to make the flow visible. Photographs were taken over the angle-of-attack ranges of -10 deg to 40 deg.
Pressure distributions around circular and circular/strake cylinders were measured in a wind tunnel at Mach numbers from 0.6 to 1.2 with Reynolds number independently variable from 10,000 to 100,000. The local pressures are integrated over the cylinder surface to determine the variation of drag coefficient with both Mach number and Reynolds number. Effects of tunnel blockage are evaluated by comparing results from circular cylinders of various diameters at common Mach and Reynolds number conditions. Compressibility effects are concluded to be responsible for a flight reduction of the drag coefficient near Mach 0.7. Drag increases with strake height, presumably approaching a maximum drag corresponding to a flat plate configuration.
A general research fighter model was tested in the Langley 7 by 10 foot high speed tunnel at a Mach number of 0.3. Strakes with exposed semi-spans of 10 percent, 20 percent, and 30 percent of the wing reference semi-span were tested in combination with wings having leading edge sweep angles of 30, 44, and 60 degrees. The angle of attack range was from -4 degrees to approximately 48 degrees at sideslip angles of 0, -5, and 5 degrees. The data are presented without analysis in order to expedite publication.
The YF-16 and F-16 developmental wind tunnel test program was reviewed and all force data pertinent to the design of forebody and nose strakes extracted. A complete set of these data is presented without analysis.
The YF-16 and F-16 developmental wind tunnel test program was reviewed. Geometrical descriptions, general comments, representative data, and the initial efforts toward the development of design guides for the application of strakes to future aircraft are presented.
A series of low-speed static wind-tunnel force tests were conducted on a 0.15-scale model of a modern high-performance fighter aircraft. The tests identified the use of nose chines to enhance stability at high angles of attack. Results of this investigation showed that the strake was the major contributor to directional instability. The destabilizing forces were created by two mechanisms: (1) adverse flow in the region of the vertical tail, and (2) forces generated on the fuselage ahead of the center of gravity. Properly designed nose chines effectively negated the adverse flow near the vertical tail and created stabilizing forces on the forebody in the range of the stall angle of attack.
A combination of the Euler, and thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations were solved for the flowfield around a wing-strake-fuselage configuration similar to the F-16A aircraft. The flowfield was divided into multiple blocks using a zoning program, and the TNSWF solution program, based on an implicit solution algorithm, updates each subregion of the flowfield sequentially. The total grid contained approximately 300,000 grid points, and clustering was effected normal to all aircraft surfaces. The computed solutions agreed well quantitatively with wind-tunnel pressure distribution data, and they agreed well qualitatively with flow visualization from wind- and water-tunnel tests.
The flowfield, surface pressure, and integrated forces and moments for a fighter-type forebody with sharp leading-edge strakes have been obtained by numerical solution of the Euler equations. The method is found to correctly predict the leading-edge vortices and embedded shocks which arise at higher angles of attack. Results are presented for the effects of crossflow grid density, artificial viscosity, angle of attack, streamwise station, and camber on the flow characteristics.
Analysis of complex configurations using structured grids virtually demands multiple blocks of grids. To facilitate calculations involving multiple blocks, a geneal grid-block patching algorithm based on generalized coordinate inerpolation has been developed. The computational grid may contain as many arbirarily shaped blocks as required to make the grid generation problem tractable and to accurately model the fow features. Results are presented for several test cases as well as for the F-18 forebody control strake. The methodology developed has application to overlapped or embedded grids.
A wind tunnel data base was established for the effects of chine-like forebody strakes and Mach number on the longitudinal and lateral-directional characteristics of a generalized 55 degree cropped delta wing-fuselage-centerline vertical tail configuration. The testing was conducted in the 7- by 10-Foot Transonic Tunnel at the David Taylor Research Center at free-stream Mach numbers of 0.40 to 1.10 and Reynolds numbers based on the wing mean aerodynamic chord of 1.60 x 10(exp 6) to 2.59 x 10(exp 6). The best matrix included angles of attack from 0 degree to a maximum of 28 degree, angles of sidesip of 0, +5, and -5 degrees, and wing leading-edge flat deflection angles of 0 and 30 degrees. Key flow phenomena at subsonic and transonic conditions were identified by measuring off-body flow visualization with a laser screen technique. These phenomena included coexisting and interacting vortex flows and shock waves, vortex breakdown, vortex flow interactions with the vertical tail, and vortices induced by flow separation from the hinge line of the deflected wing flap. The flow mechanisms were correlated with the longitudinal and lateral-directional aerodynamic data trends.
Low-speed wind-tunnel tests were conducted in the Langley 12-Foot Low-Speed Tunnel on a model of the Boeing Multirole Fighter (BMRF) aircraft. This single-seat, single-engine configuration was intended to be an F-16 replacement that would incorporate many of the design goals and advanced technologies of the F-22. Its mission requirements included supersonic cruise without afterburner, reduced observability, and the ability to attack both air-to-air and air-to-ground targets. So that it would be effective in all phases of air combat, the ability to maneuver at angles of attack up to and beyond maximum lift was also desired. Traditional aerodynamic yaw controls, such as rudders, are typically ineffective at these higher angles of attack because they are usually located in the wake from the wings and fuselage. For this reason, this study focused on investigating forebody-mounted controls that produces yawing moments by modifying the strong vortex flowfield being shed from the forebody at high angles of attack. Two forebody strakes were tested that varied in planform and chordwise location. Various patterns of porosity in the forebody skin were also tested that differed in their radial coverage and chordwise location. The tests were performed at a dynamic pressure of 4 lb/ft(exp 2) over an angle-of-attack range of -4 deg to 72 deg and a sideslip range of -10 deg to 10 deg. Static force data, static pressures on the surface of the forebody, and videotapes of flow-visualization using laser-illuminated smoke were obtained.
An investigation of the low-subsonic stability and control characteristics of a l/7-scale free-flying model modified to represent closely the North American X-15 airplane (configuration 3) has been made in the Langley full-scale tunnel. Flight conditions at a relatively low altitude were simulated with the center of gravity at 16.0 percent of the mean aerodynamic chord. The longitudinal stability and control were considered to be satisfactory for all flight conditions tested. The lateral flight behavior was generally satisfactory for angles of attack below about 20 deg. At higher angles, however, the model developed a tendency to fly in a side-slipped attitude because of static directional instability at small sideslip angles. Good roll control was maintained to the highest angles tested, but rudder effectiveness diminished with increasing angle of attack and became adverse for angles above 40 deg. Removal of the lower rudder had little effect on the lateral flight characteristics for angles of attack less than about 20 deg but caused the lateral flight behavior to become worse in the high angle-of-attack range. The addition of small fuselage forebody strakes improved the static directional stability and lateral flight behavior of both configurations.
The vortical flow fields over a double-delta wing with sweep angles 80 and 60 deg are investigated by means of numerical simulations based on the LU-ADI code of Fujii and Obayashi (1986) for the three-dimensional thin-layer Navier-Stokes equations. The results obtained using an 850,000-point grid at angle of attack alpha = 6-40 deg are presented graphically, compared with experimental data, and characterized in detail. Qualitatively accurate simulations are obtained for transition phenomena such as strake/wing-vortex interaction at alpha = 12 deg, bubble-type vortex breakdown near the trailing edge at alpha = 30 deg, and spiral-type breakdown at alpha = 35 deg. It is suggested that quantitative simulations can be achieved at higher grid resolution.
Transonic Euler/Navier-Stokes computations are accomplished for wing-body flow fields using a computer program called Transonic Navier-Stokes (TNS). The wing-body grids are generated using a program called ZONER, which subdivides a coarse grid about a fighter-like aircraft configuration into smaller zones, which are tailored to local grid requirements. These zones can be either finely clustered for capture of viscous effects, or coarsely clustered for inviscid portions of the flow field. Different equation sets may be solved in the different zone types. This modular approach also affords the opportunity to modify a local region of the grid without recomputing the global grid. This capability speeds up the design optimization process when quick modifications to the geometry definition are desired. The solution algorithm embodied in TNS is implicit, and is capable of capturing pressure gradients associated with shocks. The algebraic turbulence model employed has proven adequate for viscous interactions with moderate separation. Results confirm that the TNS program can successfully be used to simulate transonic viscous flows about complicated 3-D geometries.
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