Key aerodynamic issues and development tendency of internal weapons bay of advanced fighters

Internal weapons bay can considerably improve the overall aerodynamic performance of advanced fighters. However, during the bomb dropping, the structural vibration and aerodynamic noise induced by flow fields around internal weapons bay will significantly undermine fighters' safety. This paper first briefly introduces the development of internal weapons bay and summarizes related research regarding cavity-flow-induced vibrations and aerodynamic noise. Later, design requirements for internal weapons bay are proposed based on a systematic analysis of the complex cavity flows related to internal weapons bay. At last, critical technical difficulties and some future research directions are discussed after a thorough study of flow mechanism, numerical simulation methods, wind test techniques, and control strategies for fluid-structure-noise coupled systems. This paper is helpful to the understanding of vital aerodynamic issues related to internal weapons bay. It also provides research directions to the cavity-flow-induced noise and vibrations.