A semiempirical method for obtaining fuselage normal areas from fuselage Mach sliced areas

摘要

An aircraft designed to meet low sonic boom or shaped ground overpressure signature requirements has a volume and lift equivalent area distribution which is in close agreement with the equivalent areas of a desired theoretical curve. Final-stage design modifications of the aircraft's geometry to meet this requirement are usually made through adjustments to the fuselage normal cross-section areas that are derived from the corresponding fuselage equivalent areas by iterative methods. The time required to obtain a good agreement between the desired low-boom area distribution and the conceptual aircraft total area distribution can be reduced by using a semi-empirical method which eliminates much of the final trial-and-error iteration previously employed. Fuselages from conceptual aircraft designed to generate low sonic boom ground overpressures at cruise Mach numbers of 2.0 and 3.0 were used as examples to examine the method's capabilities and limitations. Results indicated that the method has merit as a design tool consistent with other linear theory methods.