For years, wide-speed-range waveriders that can balance both high-speed and low-speed flight states have attracted significant attention in aerospace engineering. Such designs are crucial for developing reusable space shuttles capable of horizontal takeoff and landing. However, the significant degradation in performance exhibited by traditional waveriders across a wide-speed-range remains a major obstacle to the engineering application. At the core of this challenge is the difficulty in reconciling two conflicting aerodynamic requirements: effective shock wave control at high-speed and efficient utilization of vortex lift at low-speed.
Recently, a research team led by Professor Luo from Central South University in China published pioneering research on double swept waveriders in Chinese Journal of Aeronautics (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2025.103887). The design employs a novel vortex–wave coupling technique to enhance subsonic lift through a significant leeward vortex while maintaining hypersonic shockwave management. This approach overcomes the performance bottleneck of traditional hypersonic vehicles in wide-speed-range flight. Moreover, the novel double-swept configuration provides critical support for the development of autonomous horizontal take-off and landing aerospace vehicles.
The key breakthrough of the research lies in the innovative integration of methodologies. The team established a collaborative design mechanism between the "basic flow field" and "planar contour", achieving a breakthrough improvement in aerodynamic performance through four key steps: selection of conical basic flow field, generation of leading-edge profiles by projection method, construction of configuration through streamline tracing, and intelligent optimization. Notably, the research team developed an Improved Multi-Objective Cuckoo Search algorithm, which enhances optimization efficiency by introducing innovative strategies, including non-dominated sorting and self-adaptive elimination, providing an intelligent solution for the design of complex aerodynamic configurations.
Through numerical simulation verification, the double swept waverider demonstrates outstanding comprehensive performance. The study reveals that under subsonic conditions, the double swept leading-edge generates a stable vortex system structure, significantly expanding the low-pressure area on the upper surface. During the transition from transonic to hypersonic speeds, the evolution of the vortex-wave structure ensures a smooth transition of aerodynamic performance. Importantly, all optimized configurations maintain an ideal longitudinal static stability margin of approximately 2%, laying a solid foundation for practical engineering applications.
Looking ahead, Professor Luo has outlined a clear development roadmap. Future efforts will focus on conducting integrated inlet design to reduce the interactions of shock wave and boundary layer, promoting the optimization of thermal protection systems to break through the bottleneck of ultra-high temperature field protection, and actively exploring deep integration with intelligent control systems to achieve multidisciplinary collaborative optimization of aerodynamics, control, and structure. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop an aerospace transportation platform with horizontal take-off and landing capability and wide-speed-range adaptability, thereby providing a critical technological foundation for the realization of the rapid aerospace transportation system.
Original Source
Shibin LUO, Jiaqi TIAN, Chao ZHANG, Yanbin FENG, Jun LIU. Design and optimization of wide-speed double swept waverider based on curved-cone projection method [J]. Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cja.2025.103887.
About Chinese Journal of Aeronautics
Chinese Journal of Aeronautics (CJA) is an open access, peer-reviewed international journal covering all aspects of aerospace engineering, monthly published by Elsevier. The Journal reports the scientific and technological achievements and frontiers in aeronautic engineering and astronautic engineering, in both theory and practice. CJA is indexed in SCI (IF = 5.7, Q1), EI, IAA, AJ, CSA, Scopus.
