Design of the hybrid wing body with nacelle: N3-X propulsion-airframe configuration

The Hybrid Wing Body (HWB) aircraft is of great interest for future transport concepts due to its promises of reduced aircraft noise, nitrous-oxide emissions, and fuel consumption. A design parameterization method for HWB configurations with mail slot nacelle has been developed for a fast exploration of design space in conceptual and preliminary design phases of a HWB configuration. A HWB planform model by Laughlin¹¹ was implemented, and the Class Shape Transformation (CST) airfoil generation method by Kulfan¹⁰ was utilized to construct the needed geometry for computational high fidelity aerodynamic simulations. Geometric constraints for the parameterization such as internal cabin and cargo hold layouts were imposed on the geometry generation. A CFD simulation was performed for a HWB configuration generated by the current geometric modeler, clearly showing a significant effect of the installed nacelle on the flowfield.