The lift distributions of two rectangular wings with an aspect ratio of 5 and sweep angles of φ = 0 • and φ = 45 •. The lift distribution of the swept wing has been plotted for equal lift (solid line) and for the same angle of attack (dashed line).
Shock control bumps offer the potential to reduce wave drag on transonic aircraft wings. However, most studies to date have only considered unswept flow conditions, leaving uncertain their applicability to realistic finite swept wings. This paper uses a swept infinite-wing model as an intermediate step, and presents a computational study of the design drag performance of 3D bumps. A new geometric parameter, bump orientation, is introduced and found to be crucial to the performance under swept flows. Classic SCBs aligned approximately with the local to freestream flow direction can offer drag reductions comparable to those from similar but un-oriented devices in unswept flows, while badly misaligned bumps see severe performance degradation. For appropriately aligned classic bumps, the relationships between performance and selected geometric parameters (height, streamwise position and isolation) are found to be somewhat similar to those observed in unswept studies.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.