Transonic wing design using genetic optimization of wing planform and target pressures

This paper presents a new method for an efficient inverse design of transonic wings with minimum drag and weight by combining the response surface method, target pressure optimization method, and an inverse design method. We used response surface method to predict the maximum section thickness and lift distribution of candidate wings. With the response surface models, we optimized wing planform, twist angle and target pressure distributions simultaneously using a genetic algorithm. Then an inverse design is conducted with the optimized planform and target pressure distributions to obtain wing section shapes yielding target pressure. Some design examples show that the genetic optimization of the present study gives a reasonable wing planform and section target pressures with less than only one-sixteenths of the computational cost of conventional methods using the response surface method. Through the inverse design, transonic wing section shapes can be determined efficiently. Also, the maximum thickness and lift distribution of a designed wing compare well with predicted values by response surface models.