Supersonic airfoil shape optimization by variable-fidelity models and manifold mapping

Abstract

Supersonic vehicles are an important type of potential transports. Analysis of these vehicles requires the use of accurate models, which are also computationally expensive, to capture the highly nonlinear physics. This paper presents results of numerical investigations of using physics-based surrogate models to design supersonic airfoil shapes. Variable-fidelity models are generated using inviscid computational fluid dynamics simulations and analytical models. By using response correction techniques, in particular, the manifold mapping technique, fast surrogate models are constructed. The effectiveness of the approach is investigated using lift-constrained drag minimization problems of supersonic airfoil shapes. Compared with direct optimization, the results show that an order of magnitude speed up can be obtained. Furthermore, we investigate the effectiveness of the variable-fidelity technique in terms of speed and design quality using several combinations of medium-fidelity and low-fidelity models.