This paper will provide a comprehensive and detailed description of the multidisciplinary activities performed by the Italian Aerospace Research Center (CIRA) and Tecnosistem-Engineering and Technology (TET) to design the hypersonic non-propelled glider Experimental Flight Test Vehicle (EFTV) and its experimental flight trajectory. These examples show that Computational Fluid Dynamics can no longer be considered only an analysis tool, but it allows great advantages in all design stages, from conceptual up to detailed design level. Computational methodology, domain discretization, and the support to design activity are provided for the CIRA USV1 and USV3, ESA-IXV, HEXAFLY-INT, a space launcher, and a Mars entry capsule. Finally, to provide a complete template for future numerical experiments, several Computational Fluid Dynamics activities, performed for a number of high-speed aircraft in different flow regimes, ranging from subsonic up to hypersonic speed, are reported and discussed. Then, a brief overview on either numerical schemes and tools, routinely adopted in an hypersonic simulation, is presented with reference to the multi-scale accuracy required by high supersonic/hypersonic flow regime. Furthermore, an overall vision on methodologies used in a high speed flow computation is also given, addressing advantages and drawbacks of classical methodologies versus modern hybrid RANS methods ones. At first the Computational Fluid Dynamics support in various phases of design is addressed. In this framework, the present paper deals with the importance and capabilities of Computational Fluid Dynamics investigations, especially those involved in vehicle aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic appraisal, to support and feed the design of high-speed aircraft. To achieve this challenge, reliable design tools, like Computational Fluid Dynamics, are strongly integrated in multidisciplinary design procedures. Finally, the same optimization criteria are extended to analyze the inlet of a scramjet vehicle with 5 compression ramps, flying at speeds from Mach numbers 5 to 10, at an altitude of 30 km.Ĭurrent design requirements are shaping advanced and efficient supersonic or hypersonic aircraft concepts, capable of flying between distant parts of the globe within hours, and making affordable and safe access-to-space transportation. Although the present method can be applied to any scramjet with a mixed compression system for any number of ramps, cases with up to 5 ramps, flying at a hypersonic speed corresponding to Mach number 7 through the Earth's atmosphere at 30 km of geometric altitude are considered. Therefore, the total pressure ratio across all incident oblique shock waves and total temperature at the compression section are constants. The criterion of equal shock strength, based on the normal component of the airflow velocity approaching the incident oblique shock waves, is applied to obtain the compression ramps angles and the airflow corresponding thermodynamic properties. To burn hydrogen spontaneously at supersonic speed the mixture temperature of the income airflow and hydrogen is obtained considering the zeroth and first Laws of Thermodynamics. This method considers air as a calorically perfect gas, with no viscous effects, and shock on-lip and shock on-corner. The design is based on the static temperature and Mach number at the combustion chamber inlet according to the conditions required to burn hydrogen spontaneously at supersonic speed. The vehicle made maximum use of databases, expertise, technologies and materials elaborated in previously European community co-funded projects ATLLAS I & II, LAPCAT I & II, and HEXAFLY.Ī two-dimensional mixed compression scramjet inlet design is presented in this work. In particular, hinge line moments for the EFTV’s aileron are also addressed to design the actuation line and to select the actuator device itself. The appraisal of the vehicle aerodynamic performance is needed for Flight Mechanics and Guidance, Navigation and Control analysis. During this flight, several experiments shall be carried out. This flying test bed is a self-controlled glider configuration that shall face a hypersonic flight starting at about Mach 8, just after the separation from the experimental support module at about 50 km altitude, up to vehicle loss. This allowed the definition of the aero-thermo-mechanical loads required to conceptually design all elements on board of the vehicle. A mission scenario, the different flight segments and events to which the payload is exposed to are described and justified. This paper deals with the aerodynamic performance analysis of the expendable Experimental Flight Test Vehicle under development in the seventh framework programme, namely HEXAFLY-INT.