A significant challenge in opening up the airspace to commercial supersonic aircraft is the sonic boom created by these aircraft. Current aircraft designs are limited in their range of operational speeds and locations due to the sonic boom. The goal of the ULI is to develop and demonstrate adaptive aircraft structures for mitigating the loudness of the sonic boom produced by aircraft traveling at supersonic speeds.

This five year NASA grant involves numerous academic and industry partners including Texas A&M University, Princeton University, Florida International University, ATA Engineering, and Boeing.

Our lab has developed and used a number of low-order aerodynamic and sonic boom prediction tools as part of this project.

Link to main project page at Texas A&M: https://supersonic.tamu.edu/

Conference Publications

Goates, C. D., and Hunsaker, D. F., “Development of a Subsonic-Supersonic, Unstructured Panel Method,” SciTech Forum, AIAA, San Diego, CA, 2022, DOI: 10.2514/6.2022-0403

Weaver-Rosen, J. M., Carpenter, F. L., Cizmas, P. G., Malak, R. J., Abraham, T. A., Hunsaker, D. F., and Lazzara, D. S., “Computational Design Methodology of Adaptive Outer Mold Line for Robust Low En-Route Noise of a Supersonic Aircraft,” AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, VIRTUAL EVENT, 2021, doi: 10.2514/6.2021-0877, URL: https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2021-0877

Abraham, T. A., Hunsaker, D. F., Weaver-Rosen, J. M., and Malak, R. J., “Identifying Optimal Equivalent Area Changes to Reduce Sonic Boom Loudness,” AIAA Scitech Forum, Orlando, Florida, January 2020, AIAA-2020-0790, DOI: 10.2514/6.2020-0790

Bolander, Christian R., and Douglas F. Hunsaker. "Near-field Pressure Signature Splicing for Low-Fidelity Design Space Exploration of Supersonic Aircraft." AIAA Scitech Forum, Orlando, Florida, January 2020, AIAA-2020-0790, DOI: 10.2514/6.2020-0789

Carpenter, F., Cizmas, P., Bolander, C., Giblette, T., and Hunsaker, D. F., “A Multi-Fidelity Prediction of Aerodynamic and Sonic Boom Characteristics of the JAXA Wing Body,” AIAA Aviation Forum, Dallas, Texas, June 2019, AIAA-2019-3237, DOI: 10.2514/6.2019-3237

Bolander, C. R., Hunsaker, D. F., Shen, H., and Carpenter, F. L., “Procedure for the Calculation of the Perceived Loudness of Sonic Booms,” AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, San Diego, California, January 2019, AIAA-2019-2091, DOI: 10.2514/6.2019-2091

Giblette, T. N. and Hunsaker, D. F., “Prediction of Sonic Boom Loudness Using High-Order Panel Methods for the Near-Field Solution,” AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, San Diego, California, January 2019, AIAA-2019-0605, DOI: 10.2514/6.2019-0605

Leal, P. B., Giblette, T. N., Hunsaker, D. F., and Hartl, D.J., “Extended 3D Class/Shape Transformation Equations for Multicomponent Aircraft Assemblies,” AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, San Diego, California, January 2019, AIAA-2019-0604, DOI: 10.2514/6.2019-0604

Journal Publications

Leal, P., Schrass, J., Giblette, T., Hunsaker, D., Shen, H., Logan, T., and Hartl, D., “Effects of atmospheric profiles on the perceived loudness of low-boom supersonic vehicles,” AIAA Journal, 2021, 9 pages, DOI: 10.2514/1.J059209

Theses

Abraham, Troy A., "Sonic Boom Loudness Reduction Through Localized Supersonic Aircraft Equivalent-Area Changes" (2021). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 8032.

https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/8032

Giblette, Ted N., "Rapid Prediction of Low-Boom and Aerodynamic Performance of Supersonic Transport Aircraft Using Panel Methods" (2019). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 7603. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/7603