Performance Evaluation of Blended Wing Body Aircraft Using Numerical Techniques

The ever-increasing demands of humanity have given rise to numerous innovative technological advances in each and every field throughout history. Aviation is one such field, and future demands in air transportation, such as noise reduction, improved aerodynamic performance, lower operating costs, higher fuel efficiency, and so on, led aircraft designers to conceptualize the Blended Wing Body (BWB). The BWB has proven to be more aerodynamic and efficient than conventional designs. This paper attempted to evaluate BWB performance using various numerical techniques. This study aims to contribute to the emerging research in this field by verifying previous results on a baseline BWB design and improving them through numerical model optimization. The baseline BWB model has been numerically simulated at various angles of attack ranging from 0^o to 40^o and low subsonic Mach numbers to determine its, lift to drag ratio, and thus its aerodynamic efficiency under these conditions. The baseline model has been modified by adding winglets, and changing the sweep angle and airfoil used for the outer wing. For this optimized model, numerical simulations with boundary conditions similar to the baseline have been run, and the results have been compared and validated with the baseline. All numerical simulations of the BWB vehicle were thoroughly investigated, including flow properties such as pressure, temperature, density, turbulence model, and so on. The results of this study have also been compared to a traditional flight to highlight the enhancements in the aerodynamic performance provided by the BWB configuration.