Airframe Development for the Hybrid Wing Body Aircraft

Abstract

By using the pressure cabin to generate lift, the airfoil-shaped Hybrid Wing Body (HWB) aircraft offers a revolutionary new way of improving overall airplane performance. It moves beyond traditional weight-savings schemes by radically reshaping the fuselage centerbody to achieve a higher order lift-to-drag ratio than would otherwise be possible using a conventionally shaped fuselage. Although such a reshaped centerbody is aerodynamically desirable, this transformation imposes significant weight and cost challenges onto the airframe structure. This paper describes how researchers at NASA and Boeing are working together to characterize and resolve these fundamental weight and producibility issues for the HWB airframe.