Supersonic upflow wing

Abstract

Abstract Present supersonic aircraft are extremely inefficient, with part of the dissipated energy constituting a pollution product as the sonic boom. These deficiencies arise from the speed of sound compromise of the conservative forward transfer of the irrotational lifting vortex around the wing, resulting in a continuous discharge of angular momentum which is constrained by continuity from appearing in its natural vorticity form and instead is forced into a compressive form as the shock wave system. The present invention employs the propulsion jet to provide a variable density flow field under the wing to relax this constraint, enabling the discharged angular momentum to appear as dynamic vorticity to benefit lift rather than suffer thermal dissipation via the wave system. The aircraft engines and a connecting spanwise manifold are located forward to emit the propulsive jet as a sheet underneath the wing at a pressure greater than atmospheric. The jet expansion cancels the asymmetric wing compression, transforming its energy to the rotational form of vorticity concentrated in the jet immediately below the wing. This vorticity provides an aft upwash that adds to the jet velocity constituting an upward inclined flow, enabling the wing to operate at a lesser angle with a reduced drag component, corresponding to the useful work recovered from the otherwise wasted compression energy. The vorticity laden jet sustains the wing pressure through its internal structure and extends aft of the wing as a vortex flap. This longer effective chord/reduced angle wing system generates lift more efficiently via a larger mass of air, spreading downstream the pressure due to the aircraft weight, thus reducing the sonic boom.

Inventors

• 👤 Scott C Rethorst

Bibliographic Details