Effect of Forebody Wing Strakes on Enhancing Performance of a Typical Body-wing-tail Missile Configuration at Mach 2.0

by Pamela K. Alstott, William David Washington

1980

The addition of forebody strakes to aircraft configurations have shown significant improvement in aircraft performance at moderate-to-high angles-of-attack for subsonic nd transonic speeds. This research project investigates the effect of strakes on missile type body-wing-tail configurations at supersonic speeds by conducting a (1) literature survey of related existing data and design methods and (2) analyzing a new set of wind tunnel data on a body-wing-tail missile configuration with added forebody strakes at Mach 2.0. Findings from the literature survey are presented. Analysis of the wind tunnel data reveals that added forebody strakes do not significantly improve missile performance at Mach 2.0 and angles-of-attack up to 20 degrees for the configuration tested. (Author).