Parameterization and optimization design of a hypersonic inward turning inlet

摘要

To improve the performance of a hypersonic inward turning inlet, an optimization design method was proposed. A parameterization methodology was developed for an axisymmetric basic flowfleld, and the geometry of a basic flowfleld can be easily generated in several parameters. Preliminarily, an optimization targeting on the basic flowfleld performance was conducted. As a result, the total pressure recovery of the basic flowfleld was improved 7.65% compared with the referred one under the same constraints. The corresponding stream-traced inlet performance was also improved 5.65%. For further optimization, an optimization directly targeting on the 3-D inlet performance was carried out. The method of calculating along streamlines (MCS), which is for the fast calculation of a stream-traced inlet flowfleld, was proposed and confirmed before this optimization. The result shows that the 3-D inlet total pressure can be further enhanced 6.74% than the previous one, and it is 12.78% higher than the referred one. That is to say, it is more reasonable to target on the inlet performance directly for an optimization, rather than targeting on the basic flowfleld performance. By statistically analyzing the optimization data, it was found that the opinion "A better basic flowfleld means a better stream-traced inlet" is statistically correct, but not exactly correct. The steam-traced inlet performance is not exactly determined by a basic flowfield, and it is determined by a combination of all the flow tubes the inlet captures.