Aerodynamic Shape Optimizations of a Blended Wing Body Configuration for Several Wing Planforms

This paper aims at presenting aerodynamic optimizations carried out at Onera in collaboration with Airbus on the AVECA flying wing configuration using the adjoint approach. Several optimizations were conducted in order to define an optimization scenario to maximize the aerodynamic performance of the AVECA configuration in cruise conditions under geometric and aerodynamic constraints at fixed wing planform. This scenario was then applied to several wing planforms in order to define the influence of the re-optimization to compute the sensitivities of the aerodynamic performance to several wing planform parameters. Finally, a cruise optimization was conducted taking into account a low-speed constraint (Take-off rotational criterion) in order to define a viable flying wing configuration at cruise but also in low-speed conditions.