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Multidisciplinary design and aerodynamic assessment of an agile and highly swept aircraft configuration

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Abstract

The characteristics of highly swept aircraft configurations have been studied in a series of consecutive research projects in DLR for more than 15 years. Currently, the investigations focus on the generic SACCON UCAV configuration, which was specified in a common effort together with the NATO STO/AVT-161 task group. This paper is the first one in a series of articles presenting the SACCON-related research work within DLR. First, the article describes the conceptual design studies being performed for this aircraft configuration. At this point the question is raised, whether the simple aerodynamic methods used within conceptual design can be applied to such type of aircraft configurations with sufficient accuracy. Thus, the second part of this article provides a comparison of the aerodynamic characteristics of the SACCON configuration predicted by low- and high-fidelity aerodynamic methods, as well as some results from wind tunnel experiments.

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Notes

  1. Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V.

  2. Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle.

  3. Angle of Attack.

  4. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt – Lilienthal-Oberth e.V.

  5. Common Parametric Aircraft Configuration Schema.

  6. TiXI XML Interface.

  7. TiGL Geometry Library.

  8. Computer Aided Design.

  9. Remote Component Environment.

  10. Computational Fluid Dynamics.

  11. Stability And Control CONfiguration.

  12. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Science and Technology Organization, Applied Vehicle Technology.

  13. Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations.

  14. Spalart–Allmaras.

  15. The Tau RANS result for M = 0.85, α = 14° is missing because a converged solution could not be found for that case.

Abbreviations

C A :

Axial force coefficient [–]

C D :

Drag force coefficient [–]

C L :

Lift force coefficient [–]

C N :

Normal force coefficient [–]

C S :

Body-fixed side force coefficient [–]

C Y :

Side force coefficient [–]

C l :

Rolling moment coefficient [–]

C m :

Pitching moment coefficient [–]

C mx :

Body-fixed X-moment coefficient [–]

C my :

Body-fixed Y-moment coefficient [–]

C mz :

Body-fixed Z-moment coefficient [–]

C n :

Yawing moment coefficient [–]

I xx :

Mass moment of inertia (X-axis) [kg m2]

I yy :

Mass moment of inertia (Y-axis) [kg m2]

I zz :

Mass moment of inertia (Z-axis) [kg m2]

V :

Freestream velocity [m/s]

p, q, r :

Rotation rates (X, Y, Z-axis) [°/s]

X, Y, Z :

Coordinate system

α :

Angle of attack [°]

β :

Angle of sideslip [°]

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Acknowledgments

The design work presented here was performed in close cooperation with DLR-colleagues from all involved disciplines, namely aeroelastics, flight mechanics and systems, infrared-signatures, propulsion, radar signatures, structures, system dynamics and control. The authors would like to thank all colleagues who contributed to this design work. An additional acknowledgement has to be given to the community of the DLR conceptual design system.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology, Brunswick, Germany

    C. M. Liersch & A. Schütte

  2. German-Dutch Wind Tunnels (DNW), Göttingen, Germany

    K. C. Huber

  3. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Program Coordination Defence and Security Research, Cologne, Germany

    D. Zimper

  4. German Aerospace Center (DLR), Simulation and Software Technology, Cologne, Germany

    M. Siggel

Authors
  1. C. M. Liersch
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  2. K. C. Huber
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  3. A. Schütte
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  4. D. Zimper
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  5. M. Siggel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to C. M. Liersch.

Additional information

This paper is based on a presentation at the German Aerospace Congress, September 22–24, 2015, Rostock, Germany.

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Liersch, C.M., Huber, K.C., Schütte, A. et al. Multidisciplinary design and aerodynamic assessment of an agile and highly swept aircraft configuration. CEAS Aeronaut J 7, 677–694 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13272-016-0213-4

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