Aerodynamic characteristics of the blended wing body ACFA2020

Unconventional aircraft like blended wing bodies are a possible solution to achieve the ambitious economic and ecologic goals of future air transport systems. Since flight control design and flight performance are strongly influenced by the aircraft aerodynamics, it is inevitable to have accurate aerodynamic predictions even in the preliminary design process. In this work we employ an Euler approach to perform a high-fidelity analysis of the the steady and unsteady flow around the ACFA2020 (Active Control for Flexible 2020 Aircraft) configuration. Since the focus of ACFA2020 is the design of active structural control systems, the steady results show an aerodynamic optimization potential and emphasize the need to further investigate unsteady rigid body modes and elastic modes. As an example for an elastic mode symmetric bending is analyzed.