Hypersonic Aerothermal Analysis Program for a Maneuvering Missile/Fighter Aircraft

Future USAF vehicles (missiles/fighter aircrafts) will have to operate under high altitude flight conditions in order to reach global targets and/or to meet unforeseen threats to the security of USA. A new accurate engineering code is needed to determine quickly the aerothermal characteristics of the vehicle and optimizeits shape, trajectory, and/or performance. The maneuvering vehicle will have a blunt nowe of small radius, followed by slender axisymmetric/planar configurations. Nose bluntness effects propagate over considerable portion of the slender body and induced pressure due to the highly viscous nature of flow affects considerably the aerothermal environment of the vehicle. The Principal Investigator applied the results of his basic research on viscous-invidcid interactions on wedge flows to derive engineering relations for large space structures like Shuttle (AIAA 93-3445) for NASA MSFC. The purpose of the present investigation to extend the same analytic approach, to develop a new design code for bodies of arbitrary shape, without using Reynolds analogy factor which gives grossly inaccurate results for heat transfer on bodies with pressure gradient. Interference effectd due to fins and flaps, optimization, and fluid-structure-thermal interaction procedures will be included in the new code.