An aerodynamic shape optimization study to maximize the range of a guided missile

Abstract

This paper describes a research of a shape optimization study to maximize a range of a guided missile with canards and tailfins. To design a guided missile for the maximum range, a shape optimization system is incorporated with a trajectory analysis and an optimization technique. In the trajectory analysis part, a component build-up method is directly connected to the equation of motion to calculate aerodynamic coefficients at every time step. In the optimization part, real coded adaptive range genetic algorithm was adopted to find out an optimum shape of the global maximum range. The shape optimization system of a guided missile for the maximum range can maximize the range of a guided missile and yield the optimum shape of canards and tailfins. The analysis results confirmed that the optimum shape thus derived extended the range of the base shape by 5.8% for the unguided case and by 21.4% for the guided case. ? 2010 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.