Benefit Assessment of Low-Sweep Transonic Natural Laminar Flow Wing for Commercial Aircraft

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Benefit Assessment of Low-Sweep Transonic Natural Laminar Flow Wing for Commercial Aircraft

Fan, Zhouwei / Yu, Xiongqing / Qin, Ning / Zhu, Maolin

The low-sweep transonic natural laminar flow wing with shock control bumps, namely, LS-NLF-SCB wing, has a promising potential to be applied to future narrow-body commercial aircraft due to its advanced natural laminar wing design combined with shock control. This paper aims to assess the benefits of LS-NLF-SCB wing application from the viewpoint at the aircraft level. Based on the previous published results, it is assumed for analysis that the 20° sweep LS-NLF-SCB wing has a significant portion of laminar flow on both the upper and lower wing surfaces and that the wave drag level is maintained. The benefits of the LS-NLF-SCB wing application on commercial aircraft are assessed by comparisons between a typical narrow-body commercial configuration with baseline wing and a configuration with LS-NLF-SCB wing, from analysis of aerodynamics, weights, field performance, emissions, and cost. The assessment results indicate that the improvement of the LS-NLF-SCB aircraft can be shown in a number of areas, including an 11.1% reduction of fuel consumption, a 3.1% decrease of maximum takeoff weight, and a 3.4% reduction of direct operating cost.