An investigation of the aerodynamic performance for a fuel saving double channel wing configuration

Abstract

This paper presents a fuel saving double channel wing (FADCW) configuration for a propeller driven aircraft to reduce fuel consumption. In pursuit of this objective, FADCW configuration combines the tractor propeller layout and over-the-wing propeller layout. The basic idea is to improve the wing lift-to-drag ratio by taking advantage of the beneficial propeller influence on the wing. Based on a multi reference frame method solving Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations, the contrastive study of this configuration and a traditional tractor propeller-wing layout is conducted. It is shown that the propeller slipstream in the tractor propeller configuration leads to a 10.28% reduction in the wing lift-to-drag ratio. With the same reference wing area and the propeller rotation speed; however, the FADCW configuration can reduce the wing drag by 10.41% and increase its lift-to-drag ratio by 13.29%, which results in a 20.15% reduction in the fuel consumption compared with the traditional tractor propeller configuration.