2-POINT TRANSONIC AIRFOIL DESIGN USING OPTIMIZATION FOR IMPROVED OFF-DESIGN PERFORMANCE

A two-point, aerodynamic design method is presented that improves the aerodynamic performance of transonic airfoils over a range of the flig ht envelope. It couples an Euler flow solver and a numerical optimizat ion tool. The major limitation of single-point design is the poor off- design performance. Two-point design is used to extend the optimized p erformance range over more of the desired flight envelope. The method is applied to several transonic flow design points, and the results ar e compared to single-point design results. The secondary design points are chosen by varying the Mach number and the angle of attack. The tw o-point designs perform better than the single-point design over the d esign-point range.