Sunday, April 27, 2014

Supersonic Aerodynamics

Years ago, the X-15 was an experimental aircraft for testing futuristic supersonic and hypersonic space plane concepts such as the space shuttle orbiter.

I used Stallion 3D to do a quick comparison of an X-15 CAD model at  two flight Mach numbers, M=3.5 and M=6.0.  The model of the X-15 was taken from NASA OpenVSP hanger.  The results are shown below:

    X-15:  In the top picture M=3.5.  The Mach number is 6.0 in the picture at the bottom.

The following link has a very interesting article on the X-15 aerodynamics:  http://history.nasa.gov/SP-60/ch-5.html.  If you are interested in developing airplane concepts, NASA OpenVSP is a good option.  More information can be found at http://www.openvsp.org.

The .stl output of OpenVSP can be read directly in Stallion 3D for rapid aerodynamics analysis (no external grid generation).  More information can be found at http://www.hanleyinnovations.com.

Do not hesitate to email or telephone me at (352) 240-3658 if you have any questions. Thanks for reading.