Uncertainty-Based Comprehensive Optimization Design for the Thermal Protection System of Hypersonic Wing Structure

Due to the inherent uncertainties in material properties, loads, geometric dimensions, et al., the uncertainty-based optimization design method has become increasingly important for the design of the thermal protection system (TPS) by carefully considering the influences of uncertainties. In this study, an uncertainty-based comprehensive optimization design method, which sequentially performs the robust design of aerodynamic shape and structure size for the TPS of a hypersonic wing is proposed, on the presence of uncertain-but-bounded parameters. The robust design of the TPS’s aerodynamic shape is firstly carried out. The results show that the proposed method decreases the fluctuation of the lift-to-drag ratio by 5.7%, with a small increase of heat flux on the stagnation point by only 0.13% when compared with the conventional deterministic optimization method. After that, based on the optimized aerodynamic shape and heating loads, the robust design of the multilayer TPS tile is conducted. The results show that the mass of the TPS tile efficiently deceased from 2.713 kg to 2.445 kg by 9.89%, and the robustness of the optimized design is better than the initial design. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed optimization method is validated by the heat insulting experiment of the typical multilayer TPS tiles.