IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/spochp/978-1-4614-2435-2_19.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Flight Mechanics Modeling of the PrandtlPlane for Conceptual and Preliminary Design

In: Variational Analysis and Aerospace Engineering: Mathematical Challenges for Aerospace Design

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Voskuijl

    (Delft University of Technology)

  • Jan Klerk

    (Delft University of Technology)

  • Daan Ginneken

    (Delft University of Technology)

Abstract

The conceptual and preliminary design of a 300-passenger box-wing aircraft configuration, designated the PrandtlPlane, is investigated. Currently there are still a number of technical issues which must be investigated thoroughly to demonstrate the feasibility of this configuration. This research study is focused on two aspects of the PrandtlPlane design, (1) the propulsion system and (2) the flight control system. A nonlinear aircraft model is created with an in-house developed flight mechanics toolbox, which is designed for its application in the conceptual and preliminary design phase. The resulting propulsion system design has two conventional turbofan engines at the tail of the aircraft. For a large version of the PrandtlPlane, it might be beneficial to consider large open-rotor systems underneath the rear wing. The volume of the wing system, which is smaller than that of conventional aircraft, poses constraints on the fuel system design. Flight control of the PrandtlPlane is quite different from the control of conventional aircraft. If control surfaces are placed on the front and rear wings, then a pure moment can be created by differential deflection of these controls. Furthermore, a combined deflection of the front and rear wing control surfaces allows the use of direct lift control. The aircraft exhibits good inherent handling qualities in the longitudinal axis. The Dutch roll mode is slightly unstable. Improvements are expected if the vertical tails of the aircraft are redesigned. Finally, a model-based inversion flight control law is presented which provides a rate command response type in all axes. An additional outer control loop is designed which provides direct lift control. The control law is tested on the nonlinear aircraft model and demonstrates the potential of the PrandtlPlane control characteristics.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Voskuijl & Jan Klerk & Daan Ginneken, 2012. "Flight Mechanics Modeling of the PrandtlPlane for Conceptual and Preliminary Design," Springer Optimization and Its Applications, in: Giuseppe Buttazzo & Aldo Frediani (ed.), Variational Analysis and Aerospace Engineering: Mathematical Challenges for Aerospace Design, edition 127, pages 435-462, Springer.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:spochp:978-1-4614-2435-2_19
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4614-2435-2_19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:spochp:978-1-4614-2435-2_19. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.