The Effect of Canard to the Aerodynamic Behavior of Blended Wing Body Aircraft

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the effect of canard setting angle on the aerodynamic characteristic of a Blended Wing Body (BWB). Canard effects to BWB aerodynamic characteristics are not widely investigated. Hence the focus of the study is to investigate the variations of lifts, drags and moments when the angles of attack are varied at different canard setting angles. Wind tunnel tests were performed on BWB aircraft with canard setting angles,  ranging from -20˚ to 20˚. Angles of attack,  were varied from -10˚ to 10˚. Aspect ratio and canard planform area were kept fixed. All tests were conducted in the subsonic wind tunnel at Universiti Teknologi MARA, at Mach number of 0.1. The streamlines flow, at the upper surface of the canard was visualized using mini tuft. Result shows that the lift coefficient does not change much with different canard setting angles. As expected, the lift coefficient increases with increasing angles of attack at any canard setting angle. In general, the moment coefficient increases as the canard setting angle is increased. The results obtained in this research will be of importance to the understanding of aerodynamic behavior of BWB employing canard in its configuration.