A new aircraft configuration is proposed as an alternative to the current standard tube-and-wing model. Initial experimental tests suggest that of a wing-body-tail combination where the body becomes shorter and the tail is an integrated part of the body offers an improved aerodynamic performance. Previous investigations were only experimental studies and the complex flow around a full aircraft configuration was not evaluated. The specific influence of wing, body and tail could not be determined by only regarding the global flow field. It is therefore the purpose of the study to provide a comparative numerical model to establish a baseline agreement at the same operating conditions. This was achieved by simulating results for several benchmark studies, making use of a commercial computational fluid dynamics code to solve the flow field. A NACA0012 airfoil, wing and a low-drag body selected from literature were considered as benchmark geometries. The drag and lift coefficients of the NACA0012 airfoil and wing and the flow field of the low-drag body were compared to experimental and numerical results available in literature and good agreement was found. The proposed wing-body-tail configuration is then modeled in two different ways, with the tail and without. Each configuration is modeled at aftbody deflection angles of 2, 4, 6 and 8° at Reynolds number of 1×10~5. The predicted flow modifications are confirmed here. It has been found that tail does provide additional lift to restore the downwash distribution of the wing-body-tail configuration and reduces the induced drag. However, this has a drag penalty in the current configuration, primarily from the form drag component. The penalty is due to the specific geometry of the aftbody-tail section where multiple separation and reattachment points are seen in the CFD results.
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