Aerodynamic Characteristics of Circular and Noncircular Cross-Sectional Missile Configurations

This paper summarizes an investigation of the aerodynamic performance of missile configurations with axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric cross sections. Configurations have either a circular, oval, pentagonal, triangular, or square cross section and were tested at three different flight conditions: Ma=1.17 and Reynolds number per inch of 3.88x105, Ma=2.49 and Reynolds number per inch of 6.88x105, and Ma=4.33 and Reynolds number per inch of 8.74x105. The influence of Mach number, shape, and fin deflection was investigated. A prescribed body motion was used to expedite the prediction of the missile aerodynamic forces and moments at different angles of attack compared to many static computational fluid dynamics simulations. The results show that the oval missile model is the most aerodynamically efficient body at all the tested speeds. At higher speeds, all nonstandard configurations produce more normal force and better aerodynamic efficiency than the circular body. The triangular configuration is much less stable than the other models.