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Variable cycle engines (VCEs) hold promise as an enabling technology for supersonic business jet (SBJ) applications. Fuel consumption can potentially be minimized by modulating the engine cycle between the subsonic and supersonic phases of flight. The additional flexibility may also contribute toward meeting takeoff and landing noise and emissions requirements. Several different concepts have been and are currently being investigated to achieve variable cycle operation. The core-driven fan stage (CDFS) variable cycle engine is perhaps the most mature concept since an engine of this type flew in the USAF Advanced Tactical Fighter prototype program in the 1990s. Therefore, this type of VCE is of particular interest for potential commercial application. To investigate the potential benefits of a CDFS variable cycle engine, a parametric model is developed using the NASA Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS).

A Hypersonic Strike Fighter (HSF) would provide many benefits over current fighters, including increased effectiveness and survivability. However, there are many design challenges to developing such a vehicle. Therefore the conceptual design of an HSF requires the development of new tools and methods to analyze and select vehicle concepts. A parametric method was developed to determine aerodynamic characteristics of hypersonic vehicles in a rapid, automated way. This parametric method and other tools were then used to select a baseline design and optimize this baseline for the notional mission.

The desire to facilitate the conceptual and preliminary design of hypersonic cruise vehicles has created the need for simple, fast, versatile, and trusted aerodynamic analysis tools. Metamodels representing physics-based engineering codes provide instantaneous access to calibrated tools. Nonlinear transformations extend the capability of metamodels to accurately represent a large design space. Independence, superposition, and scaling properties of the hypersonic engineering method afford an expansive design space without traditional compounding penalties. This one-time investment results in aerodynamic and volumetric metamodels of superior quality and versatility which may be used in many forms throughout early design. As a module, they can be an integral component within a multidisciplinary analysis and optimization package. Aerodynamic polars they produce may provide performance information for mission analysis.

A supersonic engine for a high Mach interceptor mission is modeled, and the requirements for the engine at different flight conditions are discussed. These include low fuel consumption at a non-afterburning supersonic dash Mach number for interception, and high thrust, both afterburning and non-afterburning, at a high subsonic Mach number for combat engagement. In addition, the engine should have low frontal area and low weight for a given sea level thrust rating. For the design point, the sea level static, standard day non-afterburning thrust is fixed at 20,000 lbs. The primary independent parameters varied in the study are fan pressure ratio, overall pressure ratio, turbine inlet temperature, throttle ratio, and extraction ratio. A design of experiments (DoE) is set up to vary the independent parameters to produce a meta-model for engine performance, geometry and weight.

Affordable, reliable endo- and exoatmospheric transportation, for both the military and commercial sectors, grows in importance as the world grows smaller and space exploration and exploitation increasingly impact our daily lives. However, the impact of disciplinary, operational, and technological uncertainties inhibit the design of the requisite hypersonic vehicles, an inherently multidisciplinary and non-deterministic process. Without investigation, these components of design uncertainty undermine the designers’ decision-making confidence. In this paper, the authors propose a new probabilistic design method, using Bayesian Statistics techniques, which allows assessment of the impact of disciplinary uncertainty on the confidence in the design solution. The proposed development of a two-stage reusable launch vehicle configuration highlights the means to first quantify the fidelity of the disciplinary analysis tools utilized, then propagate such to the vehicle system level.