Science Pictures

Numerical Simulation for Epistle

copyright © ONERA 1996-2006
Numerical simulation of high-lift aerodynamics
of a supersonic transport aircraft
(DAAP - Gérald Carrier)

The aeronautical industry has to meet constantly increasing demand for air traffic. This implies the development of new aircrafts, which may be either larger or faster.

Regarding faster - supersonic - aircrafts, an aditionnal effort towards environment-friendly and more economical solutions is necessary. Any new high-speed aircraft should comply with EU noise regulations - which means significant improvements of the only high-speed aircraft ever built, the Concorde.

The best way to limit the low-speed noise of an aircraft during landing and take-off is to reduce the required thrust. You can do this by reducing the aerodynamic drag and/or the weight of the aircraft. The EPISTLE project shall contribute to reduce the drag thanks to a new method to design the high-lift systems of high-speed aircrafts. This method is validated by testing a large-scale model (displayed at Le Bourget 2003) in the ONERA F1 wind-tunnel. The objective is to improve the Concorde aerodynamic performance by 40 % at low speeds.

Thus, the European project EPISTLE provides a valid numerical simulation methodology for low-noise high-lift systems of high-speed aircrafts. The leading European research organizations (CIRA, DLR, INTA, NLR, ONERA, QinetiQ) work together and support the transnational industrial partner Airbus (Al-Deutschland, Al-France, Al-UK). The project, coordinated by DLR, began in March 2000 and ended in September 2003.

Results

The EPISTLE workplan has seven phases :

• Building an experimental database
• Assessing the qualification of numerical tools
• Assessing the sensitivity of design parameters
• Designing the high-lift system
• Building of a large-scale EPISTLE wind tunnel model
• Testing in the ONERA F1 wind tunnel
• Analysing the data collected

Conclusion

The EPISTLE project provides a reliable numerical simulation method for any aircraft using a leading-edge slat based system. It proves that future high-speed aircrafts with improved low-speed performances and thus acceptable noise levels might exist.

Last Update: September 12, 2003 - © ONERA 2009 - Terms of use