Abstract
A way to face the challenge of moving towards a new greener aviation is to exploit disruptive aircraft architectures; one of the most promising concept is the PrandtlPlane, a box-wing aircraft based on the Prandtl's studies on multiplane lifting systems. A box-wing designed accordingly the Prandtl “best wing system” minimizes the induced drag for given lift and span, and thus it has the potential to reduce fuel consumption and noxious emissions. For disruptive aerodynamic concepts, physic-based aerodynamic design is needed from the very early stages of the design process, because of the lack of available statistical data; this paper describes two different in-house developed aerodynamic design tools for the PrandtlPlane conceptual aerodynamic design: AEROSTATE, for the design of the box-wing lifting system in cruise condition, and THeLMA, aiming to define the layout of control surfaces and high lift devices. These two tools have been extensively used to explore the feasible space for the aerodynamic design of the box-wing architecture, aiming to define preliminary correlations between performance and design variables, and guidelines to properly initialize the design process. As a result, relevant correlations have been identified between the rear-front wing loading ratio and the performance in cruise condition, and for the rear-front flap deflections and the aeromechanic characteristics in low speed condition.
Highlights
The requirements for the aviation of the future are very ambitious and mainly concern the reduction of noxious emissions
A less explicit relationship exists between take-off performance and Flap Gain; the results show that higher FG values, i.e. larger deflections of the rear flap, increase the runway length required
In this paper methods to obtain conceptual aerodynamic design guidelines for the unconventional box-wing lifting system have been presented; these procedures rely on design tools developed for this unconventional airframe, that are described in the paper: AEROSTATE, which aims to size the lifting system of box-wing configurations and is based on an aerodynamic optimization procedure, and THeLMA, which allows to define the layout of control surfaces and high-lift devices considering the approach trim condition, as well as to analyse the performances during the take-off manoeuvre
Summary
The requirements for the aviation of the future are very ambitious and mainly concern the reduction of noxious emissions. The FlightPath2050 document [1] describes the European vision of the future air transportation and outlines the objectives to be achieved in commercial aviation sector; the main goal that has to be addressed is the drastic reduction of the aviation impact on climate change [2,3]; at the same time, the commercial aviation has to meet the expected huge increase in air traffic demand [4,5]. In addition to the incremental improvement of the state-of-the-art technologies currently used to design and produce transport aircraft, industry and research are exploring disruptive technologies, both in the field of propulsion and in the exploration of novel airframe configurations, to face these demanding challenges [6].
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