An overview of waverider design concept in airframe-inlet integration methodology for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles

As a waverider can possess high lift-to-drag ratio characteristics as well as an ideal pre-compression surface of the inlet system, it has become one of the most promising designs for air-breathing hypersonic vehicles. There are two classes of general methodologies for utilizing the waverider concept in a hypersonic vehicle design. In the first class, the waverider is used only as the forebody of a vehicle, and it behaves as the pre-compression surface to efficiently provide the inlet system with the required compression flow field. In the second class, in order to take advantage of the waverider's high lift-to-drag ratio characteristics as well as the ideal pre-compression surface for the engine, the waverider design is used as the basis for the design of the entire vehicle, and the engine is generated within the pristine waverider definition while maintains the bow shock wave attaching to the leading edge. In this paper, the waverider applications by the domestic and overseas scholars in the airframe-inlet integration methodology for the air-breathing hypersonic vehicles are reviewed and classified. The idea for the design of a waverider-derived hypersonic vehicle can be summarized as follows:the modeling of the basic flow is used to design the waverider along the stream direction, and the osculating theory or the geometric design method is used to design the waverider along the spanwise direction.