Active Morphing Aircraft Surfaces for Sonic Boom Suppression
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Supersonic aircraft designs that minimize sonic boom often result in increased drag, reducing aircraft range and increasing fuel consumption, while designs that minimize drag may produce disruptive sonic booms on the ground.
Innovation Solution
A system that actively modifies aircraft shapes, such as nose, fuselage, and wing sections, using active surfaces to optimize for sonic boom suppression over restricted terrain and drag minimization over unrestricted terrain, utilizing an aircraft shape change apparatus and flight management controller to adjust configurations in real-time based on location.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If the aircraft body is designed to minimize drag during supersonic flight, then aircraft range and fuel consumption are improved, but the ground overpressure from sonic boom becomes strong enough to be disruptive to persons and property
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs active morphing surfaces that can dynamically change the aircraft's geometry during flight. These surfaces allow the aircraft to transition between different configurations - a low-drag configuration for efficient cruise flight and a boom-suppressing configuration when flying over restricted areas. This dynamic adaptability resolves the contradiction by enabling the aircraft to optimize for different objectives at different times rather than being constrained to a single fixed geometry
Solution Approach 2:
The invention changes physical parameters of the aircraft geometry by deploying or retracting active morphing surfaces. By altering parameters such as nose shape, wing area, and fuselage cross-section, the aircraft can modify its area distribution to suppress sonic boom when needed while maintaining low-drag performance during cruise. This parameter manipulation allows the aircraft to achieve both low drag and sonic boom suppression at different flight phases
2Object-generated harmful factors
If active surfaces are deployed to minimize sonic boom ground overpressure, then sonic boom suppression is improved, but drag increases and aircraft range is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The active morphing surfaces are deployed periodically rather than continuously - specifically, they are extended when the aircraft enters restricted areas requiring sonic boom suppression and retracted when exiting these areas or during unrestricted flight. This periodic deployment minimizes the time that increased drag is experienced, thereby reducing the overall impact on aircraft range while still achieving the necessary boom suppression when required
3Object-generated harmful factors
If the aircraft morphology is fixed to optimize for sonic boom suppression, then ground overpressure is minimized, but drag is increased and flight efficiency is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The aircraft incorporates morphing capabilities that allow it to dynamically adjust its geometry between boom-suppressing and low-drag configurations based on flight conditions and restricted area proximity. This dynamic morphology enables the aircraft to maintain high flight efficiency during unrestricted cruise while still achieving effective boom suppression when needed, rather than being permanently constrained to a boom-suppressing geometry
Data Source
AI summary
A system that optimizes the shape or configuration of an aircraft to minimize ground overpressure shock strength while in supersonic flight over speed restricted terrain and to morph to an optimized configuration for drag minimization while over unrestricted terrain.