Conceptual design of PrandtlPlane civil transport aircraft

Abstract

According to aircraft manufacturers and several air transportation players, the main challenge the civil aviation will have to deal with in the future is to provide a sustainable growth strategy, in order to face the growing demand of air traffic all over the world. The sustainability requirements are related to air pollution, noise impact, airport congestion, competitiveness of the air transportation systems in terms of travel time and passengers' comfort. Among the possible ways to allow a sustainable growth of the air transportation systems, disruptive aircraft configurations have been object of study for several years, in order to demonstrate that the improvement of aircraft performance can enable the envisaged growth. This paper presents the study of a possible novel configuration called “PrandtlPlane,” having a box-wing layout derived from Prandtl's “Best Wing System” concept. The paper deals with the definition of top level requirements and faces the conceptual study of the overall configuration, focusing on fuselage sizing as well as on the aerodynamic design of the box-wing system. This latter is designed through an optimization-driven strategy, carried out by means of a low-fidelity aerodynamic tool, which simulates the flow condition in the subsonic range and introduces corrections to take the transonic effects into account. Design procedures and tools are presented, showing preliminary results related to a PrandtlPlane compliant with ICAO Aerodrome Reference Code “C” standard, such as Airbus A320 and Boeing 737, whose wingspan is limited to 36 m. Activities and results here shown are part of the first phase of the research project “PARSIFAL” (Prandtlplane ARchitecture for the Sustainable Improvement of Future AirpLanes), funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Program, which aims to demonstrate that the PrandtlPlane configuration can improve aircraft payload capability, keeping their dimensions compatible with present airport infrastructures.

The Project “Parsifal”: Prandtlplane Architecture For The Sustainable Improvement Of Future Airplanes

“…As detailed in [12] and [13], the TLARs have been first used for the conceptual design of the fuselage, for which a single deck -double aisle layout with 8 seats abreast has been chosen. As a result, a 44 m long fuselage with a maximum payload capability of 308 seats in high density configuration and 12 LD3-45 containers have been defined ( Fig.…”

“…As described in [13], a trade-off between the performance in subsonic and transonic conditions is needed: in the first case, in fact, higher values of lift-to-drag ration are achievable only considering higher values of wing loading ( [13,15]), whereas in transonic flight, high values of wing loading can lead to drag rise conditions.…”

“…A VLM-based procedure for the preliminary sizing of control surfaces and high-lift devices has been defined for the PrP, considering the trim constraints in approach condition, as described in [13]. Such procedure results in an initial sizing of the control surfaces, and a preliminary estimation of the low speed performance of the aircraft, together with its aeromechanical characteristics of maneuverability and control.…”

PARSIFAL Project: a Breakthrough Innovation in Air Transport

“…Payload, preliminary empty weight distribution and fuel weights are taken into account in the optimization, which is conducted for a set of families based on the maximum wing loads (500, 600, 700 Kg/mq); the main correlations between the design parameters and the global performances of the aircraft are relevant results. More details about the optimization procedure in subsonic regime can be found in [13]. The aerodynamic solver is AVL (Athena Vortex Lattice) code, a Vortex Lattice Method (VLM).…”

WAGNER: a new code for parametrical structural study of fuselages of civil transport aircraft

“…WAGNER code has been carried out in the frame work of Parsifal project ( [4], [6], [17], [12]); the input of this code is the internal layout of a fuselage of a civil transport aircraft and the output is the automatic generation of the Finite Element mesh of the complete fuselage, ready for static and dynamic preliminary analysis. In the very preliminary structural analysis, a large amount of structural configurations need to be analysed in order to compare benefits and drawbacks of different layouts, to verify the effects of modifications of geometry and material properties and, finally, to provide a preliminary sizing to be used as a baseline for future and deeper studies; hence, the generation of the FEM model is required to be simple, automatic and small time consuming.…”