TRANSITION MEASUREMENT OF NATURAL LAMINAR FLOW WING ON SUPERSONIC EXPERIMENTAL AIRPLANE NEXST-1

摘要

The work reported is part of the flight testing of an unmanned and scaled supersonic experimental airplane NEXST-1 performed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to validate computational-fluid-dynamics-based aerodynamic design technology. This is the first attempt to apply the natural laminar flow wing concept to a supersonic vehicle. The concept of the natural flow wing is validated by measuring the surface pressure and the transition locations of the bounday layer. The results of the transition measurement are introduced and compared with the numerically predicted results. The transition locations detected experimentally are in good agreement with the predicted locations, and the natural laminar flow effect is confirmed in the aerodynamic design conditions of the supersonic experimental airplane NEXST-1.