SBIR-STTR Award

Although much discussion has been devoted to the promise of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) as a useful design tool, little has been done to establish CFD as a credible element of a working design process for high-speed engine inlet systems. Additional work must be done to utilize CFD in day-to-day design problems of supersonic and hypersonic inlets. CFD has been used exclusively as an analysis tool without being applied to derive the aerodynamic contours used in the definition of the high-speed inlet. Recently, the firm has used CFD in a design process which is entirely manual, requiring extensive "man-in-the-loop" efforts. This project will investigate how modern mathematical optimization techniques, in conjunction with existing CFD analysis codes, can lead to the automation of the inlet design process.

Potential Commercial Applications:
The new high-speed inlet design process will reduce the amount of work involved in deriving contours for novel configurations. When time and manpower requirements are reduced, substantial use of this design process code will be expected from the commercial aircraft industry.