Quiet Ultra-Efficient Integrated Aircraft Using Co-Flow Jet Flow Control

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This paper presents the design of a new concept next generation airplane to achieve a significant performance advancement by reducing noise/emission pollution and fuel consumption and increasing the airport capacity and safety at the same time to satisfy future environmental and flight requirements. The new concept airplane includes the following novel design features: 1) The airplane is a flying wing system with tightly integrated propulsion-airframe-flow control and engines buried in the rear part of the airframe; 2) The airplane is formed mostly by the high performance coflow jet (CFJ) flow control airfoil; 3) The injection jet of the CFJ is introduced from the bypass of the engines after the fan stages. The air inlet of the engines is also the CFJ suction slot, which is spread across most of the wing span to energize boundary layer; 4) The airplane is designed with the projected low specific fuel consumption of futuristic engines and high strength/low weight futuristic materials. These novel design features may lead to the following superior aircraft performance: 1)High cruise aerodynamic efficiency(L/D), which will significantly reduce fuel consumption and hence emission pollution. 2) Low noise level because: a) The CFJ enhances the lift without using any flaps or slats typical of a conventional high lift system.; b) The short takeoff and landing distance due to high maximum lift reduces the noise footprint. 3) The engines inlet suction and nozzle exhaust jet of the integrated propulsion system enhances the airframe performance by augmenting boundary layer suction and removing the nacelle drag of conventional engines. 4) The airplane is tailless since the yaw control is implemented by varying the thrust on the two sides of the flying wing system. The pitching and rolling moment is controlled by flaps at the rear part of the wing. To demonstrate the potential superior performance of the new concept airplane, two conceptual designs of the subsonic transports were made, one with the same mission of Boeing 787-8 and the other with the same mission of the N+2 airplane SAX for comparison. The preliminary mission analysis indicates that the fuel consumption, take off weight, and airplane size of the new concept airplane may be significantly reduced in comparison with the current technology.