Application of CFD to the analysis and design of high-speed inlets

Over the past seven years, efforts under the present Grant have been aimed at being able to apply modern Computational Fluid Dynamics to the design of high-speed engine inlets. In this report, a review of previous design capabilities (prior to the advent of functioning CFD) was presented and the example of the NASA 'Mach 5 inlet' design was given as the premier example of the historical approach to inlet design. The philosophy used in the Mach 5 inlet design was carried forward in the present study, in which CFD was used to design a new Mach 10 inlet. An example of an inlet redesign was also shown. These latter efforts were carried out using today's state-of-the-art, full computational fluid dynamics codes applied in an iterative man-in-the-loop technique. The potential usefulness of an automated machine design capability using an optimizer code was also discussed.