COMMUNICATIONS IN APPLIED NUMERICAL Vol.

3, 463468 (1987)
METHODS,

LIFTING SYMMETRIC SUPERCRITICAL AIRFOILS FOR

WING DESIGN OF COMBAT AIRCRAFT
M. N A N D A N A N ~ A N D M. A. RAMASWAMY$
National Aeronautical Laboratory, Bangalore-560 017, India

SUMMARY
This paper deals with the use of lifting symmetric supercritical airfoils in the wing design of a combat aircraft.
For transonic combat aircraft requiring supersonic acceleration, the usual supercritical airfoil which invariably
has camber is not suitable because of the supersonic wave drag penalty arising from the camber. Therefore,
lifting symmetric supercritical airfoils which overcome this disadvantage were developed by the authors, and
their beneficial effects in the two-dimensional case were demonstrated earlier. The objective of this paper is
to illustrate that, even when an unsophisticated approach is used for adopting such a lifting symmetric
supercritical airfoil to the wing of a particular combat aircraft configuration, the theoretical analysis indicates
some benefits. It is therefore felt that the use of lifting symmetric supercritical airfoils in the design of wings
of combat aircraft using more sophisticated design techniques may be worth considering.

INTRODUCTION

The use of supercritical airfoils in the design of modern transport aircraft to increase its efficiency
is an accepted fact today. However, most supercritical airfoils have reflex camber, which results
in unwanted wave drag, if the aircraft has to operate at supersonic speeds, as may be the case for
most combat aircraft. Therefore, it would be advantageous to have symmetric lifting supercritical
airfoils, which at the design M, and a are shock free.'.' It has also been shown that in terms of
buffet onset or drag rise boundary, these airfoils are superior to the base-line airfoils from which
they are derived. The use of leading and trailing edge flaps on such symmetric supercritical airfoils
can further improve its utility for combat aircraft.
These general ideas were proposed as early as 1976 by the second author,3 but the actual
demonstration of these ideas has come about only now. It may be further mentioned that this
general philosophy, that for a fighter design one must start with essentially an uncambered wing
and proceed with simple flaps whose planform and deflection are optimized for manoeuvre, is
shared by others, as indicated by B r a d l e ~However,
.~ to the knowledge of the authors, the design
of lifting symmetric supercritical airfoils has not been reported elsewhere.
For combat aircraft, the aspect ratio being low, the three-dimensional aspects such as wing
planform, the wing body junction shaping, etc., may take higher priority than the airfoil sections.
Nevertheless, it is believed that the choice of a suitable airfoil section does play a role in the wing
design of even combat aircraft. Therefore, even though the benefits one may get in the performance
of a three-dimensional wing due to airfoil section may be marginal, a proper choice of airfoil is
still worth considering as long as it does not have any other adverse effects. It has been reported
that use of supercritical airfoils was considered in the design of wings for the YF-16 and YF-17,
but they were abandoned because of the wave drag penalty they had to pay at supersonic speeds
due to their camber. Since the lifting symmetric supercritical airfoil does not have this disadvantage,
it is worth considering its use in combat aircraft wing design.
In order to assess the benefits one might expect from the use of a lifting symmetric supercritical
airfoil in the wing of moderate aspect ratio, a specific configuration was chosen and the theoretical
performance of the modified wing was compared with the original one under a few typical

t Scientist, Aerodynamics Division.

$ Deputy Director, Aerodynamics Division. Presently Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
O748-8025/87/06046~$05.OO Received February 1987
@ 1987 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
464 M. NANDANAN A N D M . A. RAMASWAMY

AR = 3.60
A 0.45

Figure 1. Wing geometry

conditions. It was found that the modified wing had a better performance, in spite of the fact that
no body waisting, to get the full benefits of supercritical airfoil, has been considered. Therefore,
the objective of this paper is to suggest that with a more sophisticated design of the wing, including
wing twist and proper body waisting, the use of lifting symmetric supercritical airfoils in the wing
design of combat aircraft may give worthwhile benefits.

OUTLINE OF T H E METHOD

The method used for designing a symmetric lifting shock-free airfoil is based essentially on that
developed by Sobieczky et al.5 This method requires the availability of a reliable numerical code
for computing transonic flow past a given airfoil. For this purpose, we have used the numerical
code of Jameson."' First, a base-line symmetric airfoil of desired thickness to chord ratio (f/c),
operating at a certain free stream Mach number (M,) and incidence (a),giving rise to desired lift
coefficient (C,) with supercritical flow terminated by a shock on the upper surface and only
subcritical flow on the bottom surface, is considered. Then, using the fictitious gas method of
Sobieczky et ~ l .the, ~upper surface is modified to have a shock-free flow at the same M, and a.
Then the bottom surface is modified to be symmetric with the top surface. When this symmetric
airfoil was analysed at the same M, and a, as expected it retained the shock-free characteristic.
Further, this airfoil indicated better off-design performance compared with the basic airfoil from
which it was derived, in terms of the theoretical buffet onset or drag rise boundary.'.2
In applying these ideas to a finite wing, the basic airfoil section of the conventional finite wing
is first converted to an equivalent two-dimensional (2-D) airfoil section normal to the leading edge
sweep. An M, and a for this 2-D section is chosen which would give rise to moderately strong
shocks on the upper surface and subcritical flow on the lower surface. As already described, a 2-
D symmetric shock-free supercritical airfoil is derived from this base-line condition. Then this 2-
D section is translated back to the streamwise section based on the wing sweep. This basic wing
and the modified wing are analysed using the three-dimensional transonic full potential finite
element method of Eberle,8 to show the improved performance of the modified wing having a
symmetric supercritical airfoil section.

APPLICATION OF T H E METHOD

The method just outlined is applied to a specific case here. Figure 1 shows the wing geometry of
a fighter-type aircraft. The base-line wing of aspect ratio 3.6, taper ratio 0.45, leading edge wing
sweep of 43.3 degrees and equipped with an RAE 102 symmetric section having constant 8%
thickness to chord ratio (flc)from the root to the tip section is considered. This airfoil is converted
into a 2-D equivalent, using the leading edge wing sweep. However, other options of considering
 SUPERCRITICAL AIRFOILS 465

-1.2 r
-Original airfoil -New oirfoil
CP

-0.8 C, 0.4337 C, = 0.4346

C, 0.0053 C,: 0.0016
'\ c, =-0.0099 C, = -0.0054
-0.4

0.4

1.01
Figure 2. Comparison of surface pressure distribution

the quarter chord sweep or local sweep are possible. A suitable M, and a which gives a moderate
shock on the upper surface are chosen. The authors feel that M, should correspond to the cruising
condition and a should correspond to a value which gives a moderate shock. In the absence of
any specific aircraft being considered, M, of 0-75 and a = 2 degrees are considered to get the
base-line pressure distribution on the base-line airfoil. For the same free stream conditions, this
airfoil is modified to be shock free and symmetric using the method outlined in the previous
section 2. This new airfoil is then translated back to the streamwise section by using again the
leading edge wing sweep.
As indicated in the last section, the performance of this modified wing using the modified
supercritical airfoil section (RAE 102 MOD) is compared with the basic wing, using the 3-D finite
element analysis method of Eberle8 to show the improved performance of the modified wing.

RESULTS

Figure 2 shows the surface pressure distribution for the 2-D equivalent of R A E 102 airfoil used
on the wing shown in Figure 1 and for the derived supercritical airfoil for M, = 0-75 and a = 2
degrees. It can be seen that the base-line airfoil has got a moderate shock on the upper surface,
whereas the modified airfoil is shock free. The modified 2-D equivalent supercritical airfoil has
10.5% flc compared with the 11% flc of the 2-D equivalent base-line airfoil. The pressure
distribution for the 10.5% flc airfoil having the same profile as the'base-line airfoil was also
computed and it was found that there was no noticeable change in the pressure distribution
compared with the base-line airfoil. Thus, the benefit obtained from the modified supercritical
airfoil is not due to the slight reduction in rlc, but due to the better profile.
Figure 3 shows the surface pressure distribution at two typical spanwise stations, namely 58%
and 83% semi-span of the wing for both the original base-line wing and the modified wing. The
free stream conditions taken here, i.e. M, = 0.95 and a = 1.45 degrees (streamwise direction),
roughly correspond to the 3-D equivalent of the design of the 2-D case. The exact M, for the
equivalent 3-D case would correspond to 1.03, but since the analysis code available is for M, less
than 1, a Mach number of 0-95 was taken for the analysis as a close enough case. It may be
noticed that the shock strength for the modified wing is weaker compared with that for the original
wing at both the spanwise stations, while both the sectional Cc as well as the overall CL have
remained the same. Therefore, one can expect the drag to be lesser for the modified wing
compared with the original wing at the design condition.
The authors feel that the shock strength is a better indication of the actual wave drag than the
computed values of wave drag from the integration of pressure, because of inherent uncertainties
in such a scheme, particularly with a limited number of mesh points on the surface.
466 M. NANDANAN AND M. A. RAMASWAMY

-Original wing
---New wing

1 \
-0-6r

I
Figure 3. Comparison of surface pressure distribution (M, = 0.Y5, a = 1.45 degrees, C,. = 0.1)

To assess the off-design performance of this modified wing, the analysis of both the original
wing and modified wing has been carried out at M, = 0-9 and a = 4.5 degrees, corresponding
to a lower Mach number than the design case, but higher C L condition. The results of this analysis
are shown in Figure 4 in terms of surface pressure distributions at 47% and 83% semi-span
stations. It may be noticed that even under this off-design condition, the shock strength for the
modified wing is weaker than that for the original wing while maintaining the same lift coefficient.
Thus the benefits are extended for the off-design conditions also.
It is common to provide a twist in swept wings such that the tip is twisted down to compensate
for the upwash effects produced by a swept wing. It was felt worth while to see if the benefits of
the modified wing would be retained even for a twisted wing. Therefore, a rather severe twist
varying from 0 degree at the wing root to -8.5 degrees at the tip, as shown in Figure 5, was
imposed on both the basic wing as well as the modified wing. These wings were analysed at an
M, of 0.95 and an incidence of 6 degrees with respect to the wing root chord. Comparison of
surface pressure distribution at three semi-span stations, namely 30%, 70% and 97, is shown in
Figure 6. Even in this extreme case, the shock strength experienced by the modified wing is
weaker than that experienced by the basic wing, particularly in the out-board stations.

CONCLUSIONS

An unsophisticated application of a 2-D supercritical airfoil design method to 3-D wings has shown
improvement in the 3-D performance of wings, even though the symmetry condition at the wing
 SUPERCRITICAL AIRFOILS 467

-0.8

- 0.6

-0.4
U
-. I

X/C 0.5 \ -0.2

0.4
O t
0.2

Figure 4. Comparison of surface pressure distribution (M, = 0.9, a = 4-5 degrees, C, = 0.32)

Semi-span

Figure 5 . Twist distributions

468 M . N A N D A N A N A N D M . A . RAMASWAMY

_. Original wing

04
51

0.6
Figure 6. Comparison of surface pressure distribution (M,= 0.95, a = 6 degrees, C,. = 0.1)

root would be offsetting the benefits of the supercritical airfoil section. It is therefore felt that the
use of lifting symmetric supercritical airfoil sections in the wings of combat aircraft designed on a
more sophisticated basis, to include the wing twist and wing-body junction shaping, may provide
positive benefits.
REFERENCES
I . M. Nandanan and M. A. Ramaswamy, ' A new concept in supercritical airfoil design'. Conference Proceedings, I I
Asian Congress on Fluid Mechanics. Chine. India. (October 1983).
2. M. Nandanan and M. A . Ramaswamy, 'Design of lifting symmetric supercritical airfoils'. J. Aeromur. Soc. Inditr. 35(4)
107-1 13 (1983).
3. M. A. Ramaswamy. 'Revival of transonic aerodynamic research'. Workshop on Transonic Aerodynamics. National
Aeronautical Laboratory. Bangalore, India (December 1976).
4, R . G. Bradley, 'Practical aerodynamic problems-military aircraft'. Progr. Astrorinur. Aeroriuitt., 81 162-163 (1982).
5. H. Sobieczky. N . J . Yu, K. Y. Fung and A . R. Seebass. 'A new method for designingshock-frec transonicconfiguration'.
A . I . A . A . J . . 17(7) 722-729 (1979).
6. A . Jarneson. 'Numerical Computation of Transonic Flow with Shockwaves'. in Syr,iposiurn Trrrmoriicion / I . Springer
Verlag, Berlin. 1975.
7. F. Bauer. P. R. Garabedian. D. Korn and A . Janieson. Supercrirical Wirig Sccriori I / . Springer Verlag Berlin. 1975.
8. A . Eberle. 'Transonic potential flow computation by finite elements-airfoils and wing analysis'. DGLR Paper 7 8 4 5
(1978).