Effect of fuselage diameter on aerodynamic characteristics for straight wing at low and high aspect ratio

Abstract

A computational code has been developed to investigate the effect of fuselage diameter with a combination of a straight wing on the aerodynamic characteristics. The case studies were performed on both wing-body combination at high wing aspect ratio (AR>4) and low wing aspect ratio (AR<4). The Prandtl’s Lifting Line Theory (LLT) and Helmbold’s Panel Method (HPM) were used to determine the wing lift and drag characteristics while Roskam’s Drag Prediction Method (RDPM) was used to compute the fuselage drag. The computed lift and drag coefficients obtained were then compared to verify the reliability of the computational results. It is found that a larger fuselage diameter contributes to the increment of the total drag of the wing-body combination without significant effect on the lift. The lift is mainly contributed by the wing for both low and high aspect ratio straight wing for low subsonic case.