Aerodynamic analysis and comparative study between blended wing and twin-engine single body aircraft design

Abstract

The aviation industry’s recent inclination towards a more sustainable mode of transportation is one of the main drivers behind the research and development of unconventional aircraft designs, such as, the blended wing aircraft. The streamlined integration between the fuselage and the wings of the blended wing aircraft is said to promote better aerodynamic performance when compared to conventional configurations such as the twin-engine single body aircraft. Hence, the aim of the project is to simulate transonic flow conditions over scaled-down models of a blended wing and twin-engine single body aircrafts at various angles of attack utilising a computational fluid dynamics model which has been both verified and validated accordingly. The blended wing body geometry was created using a parametric aircraft geometry tool known as, OpenVSP and was designed to be comparable to the dimensions of NASA’s Common Research Model. Since aircraft design is a multidisciplinary endeavour, both aerodynamic performance and cabin seating arrangements were investigated for the aircraft models. Hence, a more comprehensive comparison could be performed. Due to the nature of the flow, the models experienced complex fluid movements which were subsequently investigated. Furthermore, pressure distributions at several spanwise locations were plotted, whilst graphs of coefficients of lift and drag were also considered. The results indicated that the twin-engine single body aircraft model produced better L/D ratios than the blended wing aircraft for most angles of attack, specifically at low angles of attack. Although the blended wing aircraft was capable of generating greater lift forces, the drag forces experienced by the aircraft were also substantially higher since the aircraft occupies a larger wetted area. On the other hand, preliminary interior arrangements showed that the blended wing aircraft may have the potential of carrying significantly more passengers than the twin-engine single body aircraft. A sensitivity analysis was also performed on the blended wing aircraft to investigate how certain changes to the design, geometry and performance affect the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft.