Research on concept of conformal semi-ring wing configuration for water-air medium voyage

To meet the mission requirement of alternately traversing water-air interface and freely voyaging either in air or water, solve the contradiction between aerodynamic configuration and hydrodynamic configuration, and endure huge waterentry impact, a conformal semiring wing configuration is proposed based on the extendable ring wing concept. Basic arrangement of single aero and hydro configuration is framed and the switch method is carried out by the wing’s symmetrically rotating around aircraft axis. Aerodynamic and hydrodynamic performance of corresponding configuration is simulated by CFX under designed speed. Numerical simulation results indicate that, when the angle of attack (α) is 0°, the lift and drag characteristic of aero configuration is twice as much as the plain wing configuration with the same airfoil, chord length and equivalent wing projective area, when α>12°, the lift increasing ratio reduces to ten percent. The performance of hydro configuration is approximate to torpedo configuration, and when the aero configuration voyages in water, the wing drag accounts for 50% of the whole drag, while the wing lift proportion is settled to 50% as |α|>15°. When the absolute value of α is decreasing, lift ratio of the wing to aero configuration increases sharply, at α =3°, the ratio reaches 98%. All the results validate the rationality and necessity of the two deployments and morphing scenario of conformal semi-ring wing configuration.