A multi-disciplinary analysis and optimisation methodology has been developed and applied in a study to compare the fuel burn of a box-wing configuration compared to a conventional aircraft configuration for a given mission. The methodology and toolchain combines Vortex Lattice Method (VLM) with a newly developed structural analysis tool WingMASS, allowing the design space to be explored from an aerodynamics and structures perspective. Three geometric parameters were varied: horizontal and vertical wing separation and aspect ratio. A comparison between te box-wing configuration and its conventional counterpart shows that the box-wing configuration has a potential fuel burn reductioin of about 5%. Changing the horizontal wing separation due to weight and balance and stability and control requirements, still leads to a 3% reduction in fuel burn.
↧