Validations, Predictions, and Aerodynamic Optimization of Short and Medium Range Missile Configurations

The aerodynamic characteristics of various short and medium range air-to-air missiles are predicted by using the U.S. Air Force Missile DATCOM (97 version), which predicts the aerodynamic forces, moments, and stability derivatives of axi-symmetric and non-axisymmetric missile configurations for the wide range of angle of attacks and Mach numbers. To validate the accuracy of the code, the normal force, pitching moment and axial force of two missile configurations, Air Intercept Missile, AIM 7 and a generic missile shape with a high-aspect-ratio wing-body-tail configuration, are compared with the experimental data and the results using AeroPrediction 98 (AP98). The error for each aerodynamic component is calculated and evaluated. Next. the aerodynamic characteristics of AIM 9B and AMRAM 120B are evaluated and aero-data base are constructed for the fixed control surfaces. Finally, the aerodynamic optimization of the short range missile is performed using the Neural Networks. and shows the improvement in the range of missile by optimizing the wing configuration with four design variables and the finesses ratio.