Conceptual design and comparative study of strut-braced wing and twin-fuselage aircraft configurations with ultra-high aspect ratio wings

Abstract

Ultra-high aspect ratio wing Strut-braced wing Twin-fuselage Advanced airframe technology Conceptual designSustainable and fuel-efficient next-generation air transportation demands a step change in aircraft performance. The ultra-high aspect ratio wings (UHARW) configuration is one key enabling strategy for improving aircraft aerodynamic efficiency and reducing fuel consumption and emissions. Unconventional aircraft configurations and advanced airframe technologies are required to address the large bending moment and shear stresses in the UHARW structure. This paper considers two promising unconventional configurations for adopting UHARW design, including strut-braced-wing (SBW) and twin-fuselage (TF), with advanced airframe technologies, i.e., active flow control, active load alleviation, and advanced airframe structures and materials. Three typical missions, including short-range (SR), medium-range (MR), and long-range (LR), are considered for aircraft design. A conceptual design and performance analysis framework for SBW and TF configurations is developed in this paper. According to the mission profile and top-level requirements proposed for each mission, an SBW and a TF configuration are designed, respectively. A comparative study is carried out to determine the best-in-class configuration of the corresponding mission to evaluate the potential of SBW and TF configurations for next-generation sustainable aviation applications. The results showed that the TF configuration has a better wing weight reduction effect than the SBW configuration, and the MR-TF and LR-TF aircraft have lower takeoff weight and fuel weight than those of the SBW aircraft for the same mission. However, due to the adjustment of the cabin dimensions for the SR-TF aircraft, the SBW configuration outperforms the TF configuration in this mission.

Validation and Calibration of Conceptual Design Tool SUAVE

“…SUAVE has gained popularity as a tool for aircraft design and analysis in recent published literature [15]- [19], however it lacks a thorough, comprehensive validation against complete, current aircraft designs. For example, the SUAVE developers validated a Boeing 737-800 aircraft model by comparing the block fuel burn of the design mission with that of similar design tools [11], while a recent study of a UHAR aircraft validated the SUAVE fuel burn results against a similar Boeing numerical study [16]. This study aims to progress the validation of SUAVE further, by comparing model results with real-world flight data.…”

Initial weight estimation of twin-fuselage configuration in aircraft conceptual design

“…[34], consisting of two main modules: Initial Sizing and Mission Analysis. The aircraft initial sizing is performed by using PyInit, 6 an in-house tool developed by the authors, to generate the constraints diagrams, size the components and so on. Then the initially sized aircraft is imported into the SUAVE, 5 an open-source aircraft performance analysis tool developed by Stanford University, for the analysis of weight breakdown, mission segments, flight performance and so on, through convergence iterations.…”

“…One of the most promising solutions to achieve this purpose is the Ultra-High Aspect Ratio Wing (UHARW) configuration, which can improve aircraft aerodynamic efficiency and reduce fuel consumption significantly. 6 However, the bending moment and shear force in the UHARW structure is significantly larger than that of conventional aircraft wings. The UHARW structure needs to be strengthened to carry the larger loads, which results in a significant increase in the wing mass.…”

“…One of the most promising solutions to achieve this purpose is the Ultra-High Aspect Ratio Wing (UHARW) configuration, which can improve aircraft aerodynamic efficiency and reduce fuel consumption significantly. 6…”

Multi-fidelity Nonlinear Aeroelastic Analysis of a Strut-braced Ultra-high Aspect Ratio Wing Configuration

“…The configuration considered is a mid-range aircraft, with strut-braced UHARW, referred to hereafter as SBWS. The configuration is propagated from the conceptual design presented in [19]. The test case demonstrated here accounts only for two geometric design variables (span and sweep of the wing), but is devised in order to cope with much larger problems at the level of preliminary aircraft design.…”