Aerostructural Optimization of Drooped Wings

Abstract

Through aerostructural optimization, this paper presents progress toward characterizing the potential efficiency gains of drooped wings for commercial aircraft in transonic flight. The drooped wing is a nonplanar configuration with downward spanwise camber from the wing root to the tip. The aerostructural optimization cases include two load conditions: cruise and . The single maneuver load condition is used for structural sizing of the wing. In all cases, the projected span of the wing remains unchanged. The results show that such a wing has the potential to improve aircraft range by 2.6% relative to an optimized planar wing of the same projected span. The reason is that the drooped wing pushes the tip vortex further away than the planar wing and increases the projected span at the deflected state. Furthermore, if the drooped wing is permitted to have curved leading and trailing edges, a 4.9% range improvement in comparison to an optimized planar wing with straight leading and trailing edges is possible by further reducing wing weight and wave drag.