Aerodynamic and Stability Analysis of Blended Wing Body Aircraft

Sanjiv Paudel

doi:10.11648/j.ijmea.20160404.12

Abstract

The main purpose of the paper is to study the aerodynamic and stability characteristics of a blended-wing-body (BWB) aircraft. This paper presents the estimation and selection of aircraft design parameters, planform design, reflex airfoils, and conduct thorough stability investigation of the aircraft. A conceptual design of BWB aircraft has been done and the design was analyzed and refined to achieve static stability. The CFD analysis of the BWB aircraft was done at three different values of angle-of-attack (AOA) and thus the stall AOA was determined from the computational results. The dynamic stability of the aircraft has been studied under five modes namely- short period, phugoid, Dutch-roll, roll and spiral. The static stability has been achieved with a wide positive value of static margin. Results also show that the aircraft is dynamically stable for longitudinal and lateral modes when subjected to disturbances in respective conditions. The BWB aircraft fulfils the criteria of Class I Category B aircraft and shows flight level 1 characteristics in all stability modes.

Highlights

The need and requirements of aircrafts for transporting passengers and cargo from one destination to another has took-off to greater heights since few decades
This paper aims to give the detail procedure of an aircraft design, from initial parameter estimation to computational analysis and its stability analysis
The stability investigation of the BWB shows that the aircraft is statically stable with a positive static margin of 18%

Summary

Introduction

The need and requirements of aircrafts for transporting passengers and cargo from one destination to another has took-off to greater heights since few decades. Various technological developments have took off in various sectors of aircraft design such as propulsion, aerodynamics, avionics, etc. BWB aircraft being one of the promising aircraft shows a greater efficiency in its aerodynamic parameters. Though the name BWB famed in the aviation industry only a decade or two before, but the context has been flying in the sky since 1933, when Horten brothers conceived their first glider [1]. NASA and Boeing are continuously producing prototypes of BWB, upgrading one after the other with X48C being the recent advancement in the design [2]

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