Optimal Axisymmetric Noses of Bodies in a Flow. Calculations and Experiments

The distinctive features of directmethods for contouring axisymmetric noses of bodies in a supersonic flow are discussed. The nose of a body of revolution in a supersonic flow, optimal with respect to the wave drag, includes a forward-looking flat face adjoining through a bend a sloping region of given aspect ratio (length-to-base-radius ratio), which, in turn, adjoins, again through a bend, the main part of the body. The above-mentioned sloping region can have, depending on its length, some additional internal bends. The presence of bends in a contoured configuration can often be undesirable, owing to strength, thermal, or others restrictions. For this reason, in solving the optimal contouring problems by means of direct methods analytical approximations of the unknown contour are often used, which leads to an increase in the drag of the optimized configuration. The degree of the increase in the drag of the nose part of a body of revolution in the cases of the local smoothing of bends in the optimal configuration and the global variation of its shape on the basis of an analytical approximation is investigated. It is shown that an increase in the drag of the nose part of a body of revolution owing its ineffective approximation can be many times greater than the gain due to optimization. The results of calculations are confirmed by the experimental data obtained.