Aerodynamic Design and Exploration of a Blended Wing Body Aircraft at Subsonic Speed

Abstract

Verbatim from Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons. Not paraphrased, not summarized.

Blended Wing Body (BWB) is a novel aircraft concept which provides many different aerodynamic benefits over conventional aircrafts design. This research investigated the BWB design, L/D characteristics, surface pressure distribution and span-wise lift distribution of a BWB aircraft at low to medium subsonic speeds. A BWB model was designed, manufactured and tested in a subsonic wind tunnel to validate the CFD simulation. The results gained from the investigation proved that BWB has a L/D improvement of 9.4% than conventional aircrafts and 21% increase at medium subsonic speeds (Mach 0.6) compared to lower subsonic speeds of 25 m/sec. It was found that the lift minimally increases between the two speeds; however the improvement is generated due to drag reduction. The drag reduction is accomplished due to boundary layer attachment for a longer period of time before separation occurs. It is this difference which generates the lift to drag ratio improvement.

Authors

• Dakka, Sam, Dr Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
• Johnson, Oliver Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Keywords

• Blended Wing Body; BWB; aerodynamics of BWB; experimental aerodynamics; computational fluid dynamics; Lift to drag ratio
• non-conventional aircraft design.
• Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics
• Aeronautical Vehicles