Aerothermoelastic-Acoustics Simulation of Flight Vehicles

This paper describes a novel computational-fluid-dynamics-based numerical solution procedure for effective simulation of aerothermoacoustics problems with application to aerospace vehicles. A finite element idealization is employed for both fluid and structure domains, which fully accounts for thermal effects. The accuracies of both the fluid and structure capabilities are verified with flight- and ground-test data. A time integration of the structural equations of motion, with the governing flow equations, is conducted for the computation of the unsteady aerodynamic forces, which uses a transpiration boundary condition at the surface nodal points in lieu of the updating of the fluid mesh. Two example problems are presented herein to that effect. The first one relates to a cantilever wing with a NACA 0012 airfoil. The solution results demonstrate the effect of temperature loading that causes a significant increase in acoustic response. A second example, the hypersonic X-43 vehicle, is also analyzed; and relevant results are presented. The common finite element-based aerothermoelastic-acoustics simulation process, its applicability to the efficient and routine solution of complex practical problems, the employment of the effective transpiration boundary condition in the computational fluid dynamics solution, and the development and public domain distribution of an associated code are unique features of this paper.