Schematic of X-59 with potential boom mitigation techniques.
Supersonic transports can be designed for low sonic booms given ideal conditions, but off-condition flight over non-ideal atmospheric profiles can lead to substantially increased boom perceived levels on the ground. This transformative research effort will explore new engineering tools and materials demonstrating that small-scale distributed structural adaptivity can enable robust low boom performance in supersonic aircraft operating in changing flight conditions. Real-time sensing of atmospheric profiles inform the adaptation of coupled multi-actuator configurations capable of maintaining low boom signature no matter the environmental conditions. The Texas A&M leadership is natural for this effort given its many previous interdisciplinary research successes and long history of “smart materials and structures” developments and supersonics/hypersonics exploration.
Related Publications:
Leal, P.B., Schrass, J.A., Giblette, T.N., Hunsaker, D.F., Shen, H., Logan, T.S. and Hartl, D.J., 2021. Effects of Atmospheric Profiles on Sonic Boom Perceived Level from Supersonic Vehicles. AIAA Journal, pp.1-9.