Flow Field Investigation of a Blended Wing Body in Low Speeds

With the advancement in the modern transport system, it has become imperative to achieve larger aircraft volume at minimum cost wherein aerodynamics plays a major role. The present work aims to investigate the flow over a typical blended wing body (BWB) configuration at different angles of attack adopting experimental and computational techniques. Experiments consisted of the force measurements and oil flow visualizations at a free stream velocity of around 19 m/s. Computations were made using the commercially available software ANSYS 18.1. Results indicated that the use of a Blended Wing Body Configuration resulted in improved aerodynamic characteristics in comparison to other wing configurations such as Delta/ Double delta wings. Surface flow visualization carried out over the BWB configuration indicated the reason behind increased lift coefficients. Reasonable agreement of experiments and computations was observed.