Abstracts Engineering

Conceptual design methodology for blended wing body aircraft

by Paulinus Peter Okonkwo

The desire to create an environmentally friendly aircraft that is aerodynamically efficient and capable of conveying large number of passengers over long ranges at reduced direct operating cost led aircraft designers to develop the Blended Wing Body(BWB) aircraft concept. The BWB aircraft represents a paradigm shift in the design of aircraft. The design offers immense aerodynamics and environmental benefits and is suitable for the integration of advanced systems and concepts like laminar flow technology, jet flaps and distributed propulsion. However, despite these benefits, the BWB is yet to be developed for commercial air transport. This is due to several challenges resulting from the highly integrated nature of the configuration and the attendant disciplinary couplings. This study describes the development of a physics based, deterministic, multivariate design synthesis optimisation for the conceptual design and exploration of the design space of a BWB aircraft. The tool integrates a physics based Athena Vortex Lattice aerodynamic analysis tool with deterministic geometry sizing and mass breakdown models to permit a realistic conceptual design synthesis and enables the exploration of the design space of this novel class of aircraft. The developed tool was eventually applied to the conceptual design synthesis and sensitivity analysis of BWB aircraft to demonstrate its capability, flexibility and potential applications. The results obtained conforms to the pattern established from a Cranfield University study on the BlendedWing Body Aircraft and could thus be applied in conceptual design with a reasonable level of confidence in its accuracy.