Design of a Supersonic Natural Laminar Flow Wing-Body

The present investigation has been carried out within the SUPERTRAC project funded by the European Community in the 6th Framework Programme and aimed at investigating various techniques within laminar flow technology applied to supersonic drag reduction. In particular, this work deals with natural laminar flow shape design of a supersonic high-sweep wing–body configuration. The reference geometry has been provided by Dassault Aviation, one of the two industrial partners together with Airbus. Two different design are presented, produced by the Italian Aerospace Research Center and ONERA, respectively, using numerical optimization procedures based on evolutionary computing techniques and robust aerodynamic analysis tools. Results show how shape optimization can be effective in changing the boundary-layer characteristics of a supersonic high-swept wing and enhancing natural laminar flow on the wing surface.