Analysis of coupling effects between flight and propulsion systems for DPC aircraft

Abstract

The noteworthy feature of aircraft with distribute propulsion configuration is the integration of the fuselage and semi-embedded distributed propulsion system, which brings strong coupling effects between flight and propulsion systems. The aim of this article is to systematically investigate the coupling effects due to boundary layer ingestion under different flight states. As the basis, the definition of boundary layer ingestion is put forward and the modeling process of distributed propulsion system is described in detail. An analysis method based on the distributed propulsion model and CFD computation is proposed. By using this method, the coupling characteristics between flight and propulsion system are generally analyzed under different flight heights and velocities. The results of this study demonstrate that the coupling effects can significantly improve the aerodynamic performance.