AERODYNAMIC EFFECTS ON THE FUSELAGE CROSS SECTIONS FOR REUSABLE LAUNCH VEHICLES

Abstract

To achieve high aerodynamic performance in the whole flight speed region is one of the most important issues in the development of RLV. High lift performance at low speed regime makes possible a shorter landing distance, and high lift-to-drag ratio performance allows easy approach during landing process, larger down and cross range in high speed region. Such RLVs have larger aerodynamic effects on a fuselage configuration due to a larger fuselage cross section compared with that of aircrafts. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify aerodynamic effects due to different fuselage configurations to enhance aerodynamic performance for RLV. In this paper, we report experimental results by using three fuselage cross sections, such as a circle, a triangle and a square, having that same projected area and length, with and without a set of fins at M∞ = 0.3, 0.9 and 4.0.