Unconventional aircraft for civil aviation: A review of concepts and design methodologies

Bravo-Mosquera, Pedro David; Catalano, Fernando Martini; Zingg, David W.

doi:10.1016/j.paerosci.2022.100813

Cited by 54 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 252 publications

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“…[85] points out that it is possible to introduce other potential drawbacks: first, the positioning of the engine makes it more difficult to be accessible for regular maintenance procedures, increasing the time and cost of these operations; the location of the engines at heights close to that of the fuselage could increase the noise perceived in the cabin, penalizing the comfort of passengers; overwing installation could require the propulsion assembly to be moved rearward, thus causing center of gravity shifts, resulting in the need to increase the wetted area of the tail; and structural integration could result in weight increases. For these reasons, additional non-conventional UHBR turbofan installations are also under investigation; airframe configurations differing from the traditional tube-and-wing, such as those described in [91][92][93], are studied with the aim of identifying potential ideal platforms for the installation of a UHBR turbofan.…”

Section: Unconventional Uhbr Turbofan-airframe Installationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Novel and Non-Conventional Propulsion Integrations for Next-Generation Aircraft

Abu Salem,

Palaia,

Bravo-Mosquera

et al. 2024

Designs

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The aim of this review paper is to collect and discuss the most relevant and updated contributions in the literature regarding studies on new or non-conventional technologies for propulsion–airframe integration. Specifically, the focus is given to both evolutionary technologies, such as ultra-high bypass ratio turbofan engines, and breakthrough propulsive concepts, represented in this frame by boundary layer ingestion engines and distributed propulsion architectures. The discussion focuses mainly on the integration effects of these propulsion technologies, with the aim of defining performance interactions with the overall aircraft, in terms of aerodynamic, propulsive, operating and mission performance. Hence, this work aims to analyse these technologies from a general perspective, related to the effects they have on overall aircraft design and performance, primarily considering the fuel consumption as a main metric. Potential advantages but also possible drawbacks or detected showstoppers are proposed and discussed with the aim of providing as broad a framework as possible for the aircraft design development roadmap for these emerging propulsive technologies.

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Section: Unconventional Uhbr Turbofan-airframe Installationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Novel and Non-Conventional Propulsion Integrations for Next-Generation Aircraft

Abu Salem,

Palaia,

Bravo-Mosquera

et al. 2024

Designs

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“…Stability analysis was also carried out, concluding that the configuration with a vertical tail in the wingtips gives better results in both CFD and stability analyses [ 21 ]. Mosquera et al [ 22 ] discussed the performance optimisation of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles and a wind tunnel testing of a blended-wing-body UAV. They tested the stability parameters and found it to have good stability conditions, except for its take-off and landing sections.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality-of-Service-Centric Design and Analysis of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Jha

Prakash

Rathore

et al. 2022

Sensors

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Recent years have witnessed rapid development and great indignation burgeoning in the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) field. This growth of UAV-related research contributes to several challenges, including inter-communication from vehicle to vehicle, transportation coverage, network information gathering, network interworking effectiveness, etc. Due to ease of usage, UAVs have found novel applications in various areas such as agriculture, defence, security, medicine, and observation for traffic-monitoring applications. This paper presents an innovative drone system by designing and developing a blended-wing-body (BWB)-based configuration for next-generation drone use cases. The proposed method has several benefits, including a very low interference drag, evenly distributed load inside the body, and less radar signature compared to the state-of-the-art configurations. During the entire procedure, a standard design approach was followed to optimise the BWB framework for next-generation use cases by considering the typically associated parameters such as vertical take-off and landing and drag and stability of the BWB. Extensive simulation experiments were performed to carry out a performance analysis of the proposed model in a software-based environment. To further confirm that the model design of the BWB-UAV is fit to execute the targeted missions, the real-time working environments were tested through advanced numerical simulation and focused on avoiding cost and unwanted wastages. To enhance the trustworthiness of this said computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, grid convergence test-based validation was also conducted. Two different grid convergence tests were conducted on the induced velocity of the Version I UAV and equivalent stress of the Version II UAV. Finite element analysis-based computations were involved in estimating structural outcomes. Finally, the mesh quality was obtained as 0.984 out of 1. The proposed model is very cost-effective for performing a different kind of manoeuvring activities with the help of its unique design at reasonable mobility speed and hence can be modelled for high-speed-based complex next-generation use cases.

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“…One area of focus is improving aerodynamic efficiency by incorporating features such as blended-wing bodies, non-planar wings, or unconventional wingtip designs that enhance lift-to-drag ratios. These improvements reduce the amount of fuel required to propel the aircraft, thus resulting in lower carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions [1]. Furthermore, advanced propulsion systems, such as hybrid-electric propulsion, boundary-layer Ingestion (BLI) engines, hydrogen fuel cells, and others, can reduce the reliance on conventional jet engines and fossil fuels [2,3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential Propulsive and Aerodynamic Benefits of a New Aircraft Concept: A Low-Speed Experimental Study

2023

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The aerodynamic design of a new aircraft concept was investigated through subsonic wind-tunnel testing using 1:28-scale powered models. The aircraft configuration integrates a box-wing layout with engines located at the rear part of the fuselage. Measurements involved a back-to-back comparison between two aircraft models: a podded version whose engines were assembled on pylons and a boundary-layer ingestion (BLI) version that provided several system-level benefits. The flowfield was investigated through the power balance method and a variety of pressure flowfield and inlet flow distortion metrics. The results proved that the BLI configuration enhances the propulsive efficiency by reducing both the electrical power coefficient and the kinetic energy waste due to lower jet velocities. Furthermore, there was a reduction of the total pressure recovery due to pressure gradients inside the duct, thereby causing high distortion. Overall, this research highlights the importance of wind-tunnel testing to bring any aerodynamic technology to a sufficient level of maturity and to enable future new aircraft concepts.

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Unconventional aircraft for civil aviation: A review of concepts and design methodologies

Cited by 54 publications

References 252 publications

A Review of Novel and Non-Conventional Propulsion Integrations for Next-Generation Aircraft

A Review of Novel and Non-Conventional Propulsion Integrations for Next-Generation Aircraft

Quality-of-Service-Centric Design and Analysis of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Potential Propulsive and Aerodynamic Benefits of a New Aircraft Concept: A Low-Speed Experimental Study

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