Efficient Prediction of Aerodynamic Heating of a High Speed Aircraft for IR Signature Analysis

Abstract

The ability to calculate aerodynamic heating and surface temperature is essential to ensure proper design of aircraft components in high speed flight. In this study, various empirical formulas for efficiently calculating aerodynamic heating of aircraft were first analyzed. A simple computational code based on empirical formulas was developed and then compared with commercial codes; ANSYS FLUENT based on the Navier-Stokes-Fourier equation, and ThermoAnalytics MUSES based on an empirical formula. The code was found to agree well with the results of FLUENT in the wall and stagnation point temperatures. It also showed excellent agreement with MUSES, within 1% and 5% in temperature and heat flux, respectively.