Aerodynamic characterization of an integrated hypersonic vehicle

An analysis was conducted for the aerodynamic characteristic of two hypersonic in-tegrated vehicle configurations (cowl-closed and cowl-opening) with numerical simulations and wind tunnel tests. The color schlieren techniques were used to visualize supersonic flow about the subscale model vehicle, the lift, drag and pitching moment of the vehicle was measured with a 6-component wind tunnel balance, the CFD predicted results were compared against the experimen-tal data and showed good agreement, and the region of center of mass location was calculated for the analysis of the vehicle longitudinal static stability. These results showed that the act of open-ing the inlet door resulted in a loss of the lift, drag and nose-down pitch increment, but the trim angle of attack was still too high with no deflection of control surfaces. These results helped build confidence in the CFD tools and provide reference data for the vehicle configuration design.