Sonic Boom Analysis under Conditions of Atmospheric Uncertainty Using Polynomial Chaos

Abstract

This study establishes an efficient approach for sonic boom analysis under conditions of atmospheric uncertainty, such as temperature, density and wind velocity. This approach combines a non-intrusive polynomial chaos (NIPC) method, which approximates the statistical behavior of output function under conditions of uncertainty, with the sonic boom analysis method using an augmented Burgers' equation, which is able to account for the rise time of the sonic boom signature. The present simulations demonstrate the superior capability of NIPC, which can estimate the statistical signature of sonic boom under conditions of atmospheric uncertainty, while ensuring the same accuracy and much less computational time compared to the Monte Carlo (MC) method. The present simulation results indicate that temperature uncertainty has an impact on the local rise in sonic boom pressure, and atmospheric humidity uncertainty has an impact on the entire shape of the sonic boom signature, while wind uncertainty has almost no impact.