ITAC and its partners propose to develop and demonstrate a computational technology and methodology tool for the concurrent automated shaping of aft airframe and nozzle geometries to reduce tactical aircraft jet noise without any performance penalties. The proposed technologies will lead to an integrated tool which inherently maintains critical aerodynamic performance while reducing the noise generated through the process. The ability of the proposed technology to simultaneously address the entire empennage and nozzle geometry represents a quantum leap over existing design tools.
Benefit: The proposed effort, when successfully developed to a production capability, will allow analysis and optimization of an integrated nozzle/airframe geometry which both maintains key performance parameters and also results in significant noise reduction. Through the concurrent design of nozzle and empennage, the proposed technology will also reduce the time required to obtain a satisfactory configuration. Successful completion of the proposed research effort will thus yield technologies which will enable both improved overall system performance (i.e. the same thrust and drag with reduced noise) compared to systems designed using current methods) and more rapid development times. The immediate Navy beneficiaries of the new technology would be follow-on variants of existing tactical aircraft, such as F-35 and F-18. The system will also be capable of addressing next generation systems, both piloted and unpiloted. Beyond the Navy, other DoD branches will be able to use the developed technology, and commercial applications are envisioned as well.
Keywords: CHOPA, CHOPA, Parallel Computing, Noised Reduction, shape optimization, FUN3D, Adjoint optimization methods
