Abstract

Background: Aviation industry is working towards making the future flights fuel efficient by improving the performance of the aircraft technology. Airlines are looking to keep their costs lower and get the most efficient flights. This is a great challenge in coming years for aerospace engineers to improve the performance of the flight and help it complete long-range missions in future. Thus, this report is based on the experimental aircraft by NASA known as X-48 which is blended wing aircraft. The aircraft as a full scale is taken and a hybrid laminar flow control system is introduced into the wings so as to see its effect on the aerodynamic performance and thus try to lower the aircraft drag. The effects of skin-friction associated drug are to be dealt with and the laminar layer is to extend.
Methods: The baseline aircraft is taken, and initial aerodynamic parameters are evaluated using CFD tools such as ANSYS Fluent. The hybrid laminar flow control system would then be designed, modelled in CAD and henceforth would be evaluated to see the system performance. The passive suction system would also be designed and simulated in CFD environment to compare with baseline design.
Results: The system developed helps to lower the zero-lift drag by nearly 31.2%. The system also helps to lower the aircraft’s system weight by nearly 5%. The simulations performed in ANSYS show that perforated wing surfaces help to increase the L/D ratio of the wing surface from around 5.1 in base-line design to 20.3 with perforations. Moreover, the drug power needed will be lowered by nearly 54.4% and the range increases by nearly 1.87 times.
Conclusion: As a conclusion it can be said that the developed system has achieved the aim of lowering the aerodynamic drag and saved the fuel weight to a great extent. Also, the system has ensured that range performance has increased. The improvements in the system in the future would be looking at modelling the turbo compressor in the system for detailed CFD analysis, evaluation at different AoA’s, looking more into manufacturing capability and cost modelling.

Keywords: Hlfc; Catia; Ansys; Cfd