Design of an Aircraft Wing for Given Flight Conditions and Planform Area

Abstract

Wing design is crucial in order to get required performance during flight. Wing design includes selection of airfoil, planform shape with a host of parameters like leading edge sweep, thickness to chord ratio and twist. Design of wing for a 20 ton class combat air-craft, capable of supersonic cruise (M = 1.3 at an altitude 6 km) and for short take-off and landing is considered as a test case. A sequential selection method is used in this study as a first step before full DoE-based optimization. NACA 64A series airfoils are used for construction of various wing geometries by varying (a) camber 0–5 % (b) leading edge sweepback angle of 42° ± 3° (c) maximum thickness to chord ratio of 4–5 %, and (d) geometric twist angle of about 0°–1°. CATIA software is used for creating the wing geometry. ANSYS-Fluent software is used for CFD simulations. The plain wing geometry is arrived by sequentially analyzing each geometric parameter. Simulations are also performed for wing with high-lift devices, HLDs, like leading edge slat and trailing edge flap for take-off and landing condition. For required flight condition plain wing with airfoil NACA 64A204, 42° leading edge sweepback, −0.53° twist and 0.23° wing incidence angle showed improved aerodynamic performance than baseline wing. The selected plain wing with HLDs of +12.5° deflection at M = 0.25 has slightly more lift coefficient and (L/D)max than wings with HLDs at other deflection and Mach number.