Aerodynamic Design of a Flying V Aircraft in Transonic Conditions

Master thesis (2023)

Authors

Y.A. Laar Aerospace Engineering

Contributors

J. Benad Flight Performance and Propulsion - Aerospace Engineering (supervisor 1)
Roelof Vos Flight Performance and Propulsion - Aerospace Engineering (supervisor 1)
Faculty
Aerospace Engineering
Copyright: Β© 2023 Yuri Laar
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Published Date

11-10-2023

Language

English

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Faculty

Aerospace Engineering

Abstract

The Flying V is a long-range, flying-wing aircraft where payload and fuel both reside in a V-shaped, crescent wing with large winglets that double as vertical tail planes. The objective of this study is to maximize the lift-to-drag (𝐿/𝐷) ratio of the Flying V in cruise conditions, i.e. 𝐢𝐿 = 0.26, 𝑀 = 0.85 and to investigate its off-design performance in high-subsonic conditions. This is done by manually modifying the design parameters that describe the outer mold line of the Flying V and assessing the aerodynamic performance by means of computational fluid
dynamics. A 15-million cell, third-order MUSCL, Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes solver with the Menter SST turbulence model is used to estimate the aerodynamic coefficients. A new, CATIA-based, parametrization of the Flying V is the starting point of the design. Three manual design phases improve the aerodynamic performance while satisfying all constraints. Design
modifications included an increase in camber and aft-loading of the wing around 40% of the semispan and improved airfoil sections on the outboard wing generating the required lift coefficient towards an elliptical lift distribution. The twist distribution at the wing-winglet junction is optimized to reduce wave drag. This has resulted in an improvement of 𝐿/𝐷 from 21.3 for the baseline to 24.2 for the final version while reducing the cruise angle of attack from 5.2 to 3.6 degrees. The drag divergence Mach number is estimated at 0.925.