Objective
The utilization of laminar flow technology is one necessary mean to further improve the eco-efficiency of future transport aircraft. Because of the different pressure distribution type and the reduced sweep of laminar wings the drag rise is encountered at lower Mach numbers and is steeper than with conventional turbulent wings. The availability of effective shock control technologies is therefore highly desired in connection with future laminar aircraft. Previous research demonstrated that shock control bumps (SCB) are a promising means to reduce the wave drag at a certain design condition at least for turbulent wings. However, SCB shapes considered so far show significant performance degradation at Mach and cl below their design condition. The NextWing project aimes on the development of effective and robust 3D shock control bumps (SCB). Novel aspects are the specific derivation of appropriate basic shapes for laminar wing pressure distributions, the reduction of negative sweep effects by dedicated shaping of the side flanks and the significant improvement of the robustness against variations of the freestream conditions. The objective is to improve the overall performance of laminar wings for typical flight mission scenarios and to significantly reduce the wave drag at high Mach. This goal shall be achieved by systematic joint numerical and experimental studies on SCB flow physics and the impact of relevant SCB properties on performance at design and off-design conditions. The project will benefit from extensive experience of the partners in shock control and SCB design and from the availability of dedicated numerical and experimental tools developed during more than 10 years of SCB research. The outcome of the project will result in detailed design guidelines that enable the efficient design of robust 3D SCBs for arbitrary laminar aircraft configurations.
Fields of science
Call for proposal
SP1-JTI-CS-2010-03
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Funding Scheme
JTI-CS - Joint Technology Initiatives - Clean SkyCoordinator
70174 Stuttgart
Germany