Hybrid Wing Body Pitch Control with a Surface-Vorticity Solver

Abstract

Interest has recently been directed at aircraft designs with a blended wing and fuselage planform, known as hybrid wing bodies (HWB), due to the efficiency advantage they offer for unpressurized configurations over conventional tube-and-wing aircraft. Challenges arise when making decisions during early HWB design due to the scarcity of experimental data available, as the HWB concept is relatively new. This paper explores the use of a surface-vorticity solver to efficiently determine the aerodynamic loads for a hybrid wing body at a fidelity suitable for conceptual and preliminary design. Solutions are developed for the NASA N2A Hybrid Wing Body aircraft and compared with wind tunnel experimental data. Previous work focused on the N2A aircraft cruise configuration and drooped leading-edge configuration. The emphasis for this paper is on the N2A configuration with a drooped leading-edge as well as deflected elevons. The potential theory-based surface-vorticity solver, FlightStream®, is enhanced to incorporate viscous boundary layer models and compressibility corrections. Nonlinear aerodynamics are captured using Stratford’s separation model. The surface vorticity solver produced solutions in minutes with good agreement with the experimental findings.