Study on the influence of horizontal tail position and nose shape on the sonic boom of supersonic civil aircraft

Supersonic civil aircraft represent a key direction for the future of commercial aviation. However, the sonic boom caused by supersonic flight remains a major bottleneck restricting their commercial operation. This paper proposes a low-boom supersonic civil aircraft configuration with a cruise weight of 60 tons and a cruise Mach number of 1.6. High-precision CFD methods and the augmented Burgers equation were used to analyze near- and far-field sonic boom signals, yielding a ground-level noise of 85.17 PLdB. A comparative analysis was conducted to evaluate the impact of horizontal tail positions and nose shapes on the sonic boom. Results indicate that placing the horizontal tail at the mid-height of the vertical tail minimizes the sonic boom due to beneficial interference from the aft fuselage wave system. Additionally, a slightly downward-angled nose configuration results in a smoother near- and far-field sonic boom signal, further reducing the boom level to 85 PLdB. These findings could provide insights into the low-boom configuration design of supersonic civil aircraft.