| Abstract: |
The Blended Wing Body (BWB) aircraft configuration represents one of the most consequential aerodynamic innovations in contemporary aviation engineering, offering demonstrable superiority over conventional tube-and-wing (TAW) designs across lift-to-drag ratio, fuel consumption, structural mass, and acoustic emissions. This study investigates the multi-variable aerodynamic optimisation of BWB aircraft through Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations governed by Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, employing the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model on meshes of nine to fourteen million volume cells. The primary objectives were to quantify the influence of key geometric parameters wing sweep angle, chord distribution, aspect ratio, and airfoil twist on aerodynamic performance coefficients, and to benchmark optimised BWB results against a conventional TAW baseline. The study hypothesises that systematic geometric optimisation via gradient-based adjoint-coupled algorithms will deliver improvements exceeding 15% in lift-to-drag ratio relative to pre-optimisation baselines, alongside concurrent drag coefficient reduction. Results confirm that an optimal sweep angle of 38.6° achieves a cruise L/D of 21.7 at Mach 0.78 and 36,000 ft, yielding a 27.1% reduction in fuel burn per passenger-kilometre versus equivalent TAW aircraft, substantiating the BWB's role in sustainable next-generation commercial aviation. |
