Sonic boom carpet widths for NASA’s Low Boom Flight Demonstrator using realistic atmospheric profiles in the western hemisphere

NASA is developing and building a Low Boom Flight Demonstrator (LBFD) within the next five years to study public reaction to low amplitude, shaped sonic booms. Understanding the potential land area ensonified by sonic booms is critical for the upcoming community tests, and is not well known outside of using the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere which assumes zero wind. Using atmospheric profiles from NOAA’s Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) for a span of many months, the sonic boom carpet widths and Stevens Mark VII Perceived Levels (PL) at the edge of the carpet were calculated using NASA’s sBOOM augmented Burgers Equation propagation code. The LBFD’s near field pressure cylinder calculated using NASA’s LAVA CFD code was used as the input to the sBOOM code. Atmospheric profiles were sampled from several regions with varying climate in the western hemisphere. Preliminary results indicate that sonic boom carpets will be widest during winter months, and will have highest carpet edge PL values during summer months. [Work supported by the NASA Education AS&ASTAR Fellowship Program.]