Blended Wing Body Thrust Reverser Cascade Feasibility Evaluation Through CFD

Abstract

Airplane thrust reverser could significantly reduce the landing distance of a conventional civil turbofan. Control of the thrust reverser can be performed by a hydraulic and/or electric system. This study investigates whether this system can be used for blended wing body (BWB) civil airplanes as their engines are located over the wing body. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used to analyze the feasibility of a thrust reverser cascade applied to BWB airplanes. This is selected because of its rapidity and low cost when compared to traditional wind tunnel tests. Analyses are performed on a 300-seating BWB (BWB300) landing configuration. The results show that the thrust reverser cascade can be applied to BWB300. Furthermore, the results also reveal that the probability of foreign object damage problems occurring during the BWB300 landing process when the thrust reverser cascade is working is low. Increasing the reverse mass flow component along the landing reverse direction can increase the thrust reverser efficiency. However, this would also increase the thrust reverser closing velocity. Therefore, when the thrust reverser design is performanced for BWB, a tradeoff between the efficiency and closing velocity should be considered.