Conceptual design analysis of a variable swept half-span wing of a supersonic business jet

摘要

Supersonic business jets have a huge market potential, but face strict economic and environmental requirements. To guarantee the viability of the project, it must balance aerodynamic efficiency and low sonic boom intensity when operating in supersonic cruise. This paper describes the concept of an aircraft with one fixed low-swept half-span wing and one variably-swept half-span wing. Its aerodynamics will be studied in subsonic and supersonic regimes by both analytical methods, and numerical methods developed by the authors. The volumetric wave drag is evaluated numerically, through a method based on the linearized supersonic area rule, properly implemented in a VBA routine, coupled with a cone-based area extraction routine, implemented in a three-dimensional CAD environment. The study is divided in three separate fronts: first, the behavior of the wave drag with respect to the angle of sweep of the variable half-span wing; second, the influence of the tail configuration in both subsonic and supersonic parasite drag; and third, a comparison between different wing configurations. Results show that the proposed half-span variably-swept wing configuration is a promising alternative to operations flown in low supersonic Mach numbers over land, presenting a good aerodynamic efficiency, simultaneously with low-boom intensity.