The effect of canards configurations to the aerodynamics of the blended wing body / Wahyu Kuntjoro, Wirachman Wisnoe and Zurriati Mohd Ali

The Blended Wing Body known as “Baseline-I” was started in 2005 in Universiti Teknologi MARA. The aircraft has 2 meter length and 4 meter wingspan. Since then, several studies had been carried out by a group of UiTM lecturers on BWB using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and wind tunnel experiments. They found out that the BWB can fly at very high angle of attack. The maximum lift is achieved at the angle of attack around 34 - 39. However, the wing has stalled at angle of attack around 8, which is considered too low. A study on the effect of center elevator deflection to the aerodynamics of BWB “Baseline-I” was also carried out, using CFD simulations. The result shows that elevator deflection has no significant effect in terms of lift, drag and lift to drag curves. Currently, Universiti Teknologi MARA is designing a BWB with canard known as “Baseline-II”. It has a simpler planform, broader-chord high-swept wing and slimmer body with a canard (front wing) as a longitudinal control surface. At the moment the focus of investigation is on the control in longitudinal mode and to optimize the aerodynamic performance. The objective of this research is to investigate the effect of canard aspect ratio to the aerodynamics of BWB. Various aspect ratio of canard will be modeled through CAD drawing and fabricated. The wind tunnel tests were conducted in UiTM low speed wind tunnel as well as flow visualization using a mini tuff technique. The study provides an aerodynamic data and flow visualization of BWB with various aspect ratios of canards.