Design of a Hybrid Wing-Body Aircraft to Maximize Market Disruption

A method is developed for quantifying the possible market share disruption caused by the entry of a new aircraft into the commercial air transportation market. Disruption is a phenomena in which a new product enters the market and rapidly captures market share from existing products by introducing higher performance that satisfies customers needs. The quantified disruption potential was then used as the objective in the optimization of a small, single-pilot class commercial passenger transport aircraft. This led to aircraft designs with disruptive performance is some aspects of design and competitive performance in others, which historical trends indicate is critical to long term market diffusion and success. The configuration selected for study was the hybrid wing body aircraft due to the large opportunity space (albeit small disjointed feasible space) for multi-disciplinary design optimization. Since the market analysis required for quantification of relative performance of different aircraft is inherently non-smooth, heuristic optimization methods were selected and the analysis was based on a single objective and multi-objective genetic algorithm. Optimization results for the short haul market considered, showed a bias for increased cruise Mach past the high subsonic regime, high fuel efficiency and increased ranges to increase the time spent in more efficient cruise but with limits on fuel volume as the small aircraft scale. The optimal disruptive design for the short range market had a design range of 2000 nautical miles and maximized efficiency and cruise Mach to bound limit of 0.65. The design resulted in a high disruptive potential for capturing market share from slower turboprop aircraft but lower potential for capturing larger, faster, jet powered aircraft.