Near-Field Pressure Signature of New-Concept Supersonic Aircraft Obtained Using Open-Source Approach

This study investigates the numerical prediction of the sonic boom phenomenon in supersonic aircraft by evaluating the near-field pressure signatures of three different aeroshapes. Two computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solvers, the open-source SU2 Multiphysics code and ANSYS Fluent, were employed to assess their effectiveness in modeling the aerodynamic flow field. A preliminary validation of numerical methods was conducted against numerical data available from the Sonic Boom Prediction Workshops (SBPW) organized by NASA, ensuring simulation reliability. Particular attention is paid to the topology of the mesh grid, exploring hybrid approaches that combine structured and unstructured grids to optimize the accuracy of pressure wave transmission. In addition, different numerical schemes were analyzed to determine the best practices for sonic boom simulations. The proposed methodology was finally applied to three supersonic aircraft developed within the European project MORE&LESS, demonstrating the capability of the model to estimate shock wave generation, evaluate the aeroacoustic performance of different supersonic aeroshapes from Mach 2 to Mach 5, and provide predictions to support ground-level noise assessment. The findings of this study contribute to the definition of a comprehensive workflow for sonic boom evaluation, providing a reliable methodology for exploring future supersonic aircraft designs.