"THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL Lanchester lecture NovEMBER 2001 . 633 Wing aerodynamics and the science of compromise J. dupe Airbus UK BIOGRAPHY Jeff Jupp career has spanned the eomplewe Aigbus stor. from the First coming togetber of the European civil plane makers an the uso the launch this Yeur ofthe new Airbus. a single mtegrtee Eurepean commercial company. He tured work in 1964 und was 20 Yyeart inthe Aerodynamics Department 3t British Aerospace Hatfield nce Hawker Siddeley. nee de Havilland. betore moving to Filton and taking on wider responsibilities onthe design and engineering of all the wings for the Airbus family of aiteratt. Jeff Jupp is current}y ‘the technica director of Airbus UK. ABSTRACT From Lanchester to the A380: from the era of the great pioneers 10 the integrated engineering teams and sophisticated analyses required develop todays airliner. The an" of Aerodynamics has progressed 4 Jong, lone vay in the intervening century, bot even ‘wut todays computational power i is stil relevant to understand the Figure 1. Frederik Wiliam Lanchester 1868-1946, basics and the early theories as developed by Lanchester and bis contemporaries. In this lecture. the relevance of some of that ealy work and the compromises that must be made in optimising 4 modern wing design will be presented. These will include optimise tion of spanwise loading. including wimming effects and wingles, and high and low speed aerodynamic and structural ineractions ‘with examples drawn from the author's career in helping to develop ‘the wings for the HS146 (now the RIX) and the Arbus family ‘With the exponentially increasing computer power avaiable over the last 30 years, the “art of conpromnise” has progressively become the “scence of optimisation’ and the lecture closes witha bie ete ence 10 techniques used 19 optimise euren: wing designs for the Ainbus Family 1.0 INTRODUCTION Firily a word on Frederick Lanchester (Fig. 1). felt very honoured to be invited 10 give the 2001 Lanchester lecture and when I strted thinking abeut the conten, I considered moving straight into some of bis wing theories and make a link 10 the requirements of modern ‘wing design forthe Abus family of urerafl, Lanchester ~The Man was most ably covered by J.A.D. Ackroyd in his 199] lecture of that ttle and {thought J would have litle to add, However. on reading up on Lanchester’s work and personality the feeling grew that | could add something. once again linking to today’s situation. So as 3 ‘prefix tothe body of my lecture I will cover this in the next section. ‘The main pan of tis lecture will ake the form of a series of linked topics giving some examples from my eareer of the interac lions between the many facets of aerodynamic wing design. and indeed with other aspects of bringing together a complete wing eng neered solution ‘The tite of this lecture “Wing aerodynamics and the scence of compromise” is actually a corruption! As we have moved from the ‘reat pioneers. such as Lanchester. othe modem age of sophisti ‘computational methods and integrated ways of Working. s0 We have ‘moved Irom the “art of compromise’ towards the ‘sexenee of opun sation’. ] say ‘towards’ ony. Ido not believe we are there yet, and ‘engineering judgemen” exercised by experienced people is sill very much a necessary part ofthe process Paper No, 2686, Manvserpt received 6 June 200, accepted 20 June 2001,634 i: THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL 2.0 LANCHESTER — THE INDIVIDUAL Without going into the details of his personality and career. itis ‘obvious that Lanchester was something ofa loner. He worked almost {in isolation and appeared to have difficuky in communicating his ideas and concepts in a way others could understand, Indeed this led to the rejection of his paper on his wing theories presented to the Physical Society in 1897, tas nor until 1908 when he visited Prandi (Fig. 2) in Germany. and with some considerable difficulies due to language. did he meet omeane who had been working on similar lines and very much understood his work. However, Lanchester and Prandtl parted almost immediately and went their separate ways. although down ‘ety similar paths of exploration. Pranat! was able to clearly arcu late his work (in Germany), Lanchester sil suffered back at home unt he finally reosived the recognition he deserved inthe 1920s. How much more powerful would have been the results of Lanehester’s work if he could have communicated it beter! How ‘much quicker, and with ess wasted effor would have been progress i Lanchester and Prandtl had been able 10 work together? These are fexacily two of the issues facing the new Airbus of today. So far we hhove had individual teams. once again in England and Germany. 36 ‘well as France and Spain this time, often competing with each other {sometimes constructively. sometimes not). often guarding their “eroun jewels. Airbus's valuable technical human resources have 1 Lanenesters Vorety wun Prana ig ine 3819 Figure 3. Fi wang theory plonoars. Novenses 2001 Wing wih icon Wing 82 ‘ae aban hn ln Figure 4. Wing ip arengemerts, now 10 learn 19 work together even more efficiently and. above all ‘communicate across cultural and language boundaries. [Now to move on to my original intent of looking at a series of examples of te imporance of understanding some othe fundamen: {als and the issues in engineering a modem wing design, particulary. fof course. from the aerodynamic point of view in the eatext of this lecture 3.0 THE WING TIP AND CAPPING PLANES ‘One of Lanchesters achievements was to understand ané concept alse the trailing vorticity behind a wing (Fig. 3a). the energy ‘expended, and then make a fundamental linkage between this source of drag and the lift generated, It was however left to Prandtl 10 Formulate the more exact mathematical model of the bound vorex fand the continuity of ctculation around the wing and the vortex system (Figs 3¢b) and (e), According to Prandtl some ideas on {hese Fines had occured to him before Lanchester’ visit discuss Lanehesters now-famous book Aerodamics"", which captured bis ‘earlier work, But Prandl continues, “Lanchester worked on differen, lines than we did and we were able 1 draw many useful ideas fom his book". This then became knovin as the "Lanchester-Prandi theory” inthe UK. Lanchester ad clearly understood the basis of what was happen- ing towards the wing tip. The increased pressure feld below the ‘wing tended to dissipate this word) around the wing tp ino the reduced pressure field above the wing. moving into the circulatory vortex flow downstream (Fig. 4(a) and Fig. (a). It was as early as 1897 that he took ovt a patent for an aeroplane described as having at the extremities of the wing (wo “capping planes — in orde to ‘minimise the lateral dissipation of the supporting wave" (Fig. (3). ‘These also became known in the 1920s as ‘end plates’, when the basic ‘lifting line’ concept of Prandtl was extended to give the thec- retical reduction in vorex drag (or ‘induced drag” due t lift achiew- able with such devices. 4.0 FROM END PLATES TO WINGLETS Whilst the concept of reducing induced drag with tip devices is therefore by no means new. the “end plate concept never showed real improvements in practice. since they had a considerable surface area and often incured separated flow, Their skin friction and form ‘rag then usually negated the potential benefit from reducing induced drag. It 48 no until he 1970s that we saw the real breakrrerene pe ‘CW i ence A300:600, ‘AcWntcom Zl z 18 Wing ip ence A310300 an A320 .ATI0IK940 ané 8747-400 Figure 6. Winget configurations through with the -winglet” developed by Whitcomb at NASA Langley inthe USA (Fig. 4). Whitcomb replaced the end plate by sn aerodynamically designed lifting surface (Fig. 512)) using the Circulation around the winglet to oppose the Flow stound the wing tip. rather than a simple physical barrie. For the Hist ime we saw 3 significant net improvement in drag when applied toa modern trans- pon swept wing design. “There have been many variants on the winglet theme looked at since then, and those which have been applied to Airbus aircraft are ‘aso shown in Fig. 5. The A3IO-300 "tip fence’ was the frst ro fly on ny large wansport aircraft in routine service (Fig. 5(6). This device has proved very effective whilst kept to # relatively small sie, and an adapted version was also used on the 300-600 (Fig. 5(c)), A canted winglt. taking some benefit from both its height and an effective increase in wing span was applied on the Boeing 747-400 and on the Airbus A330/A340 (Fig, 5) So if these devices are now mote effective, why aren't they used on ll anspor wing designs? 5.0 OPTIMISING INDUCED DRAG We all know now from the work of Prandtl etal that the optimum spanwise loading to minimise the induced drag due to the lift on a planar wing isthe so-called ellipe distribution. Oris it? While this oes indeed give the minimum induced drag for a given span (Fig. 6(a), the optimum of interest i really fora given wing weight ana poten se uptence . a Figure 6. Optimising induced crag against bending moments OWING AERODYNAMICS AND THE SCIENCE OF INPROMISE x oie 3 | > 2 Figure 7. Wingletopienisaton ler various heights. All other things being equal this i equivalent to optimising forthe “niegral’ of the bending moments across the span due tothe loading lsibution, As teferenced by R.T. Jones in his “wing theory it was Prandtl, aguin. that frst addressed this. Keeping this integral cconstanl there is always a wing of larger span with & more triangular’ loading distribution than the elliptic. which has lower induced drag Fig. DN, If we now look ata wing with something simile 0 this new load- ing distribution but with 2 vertical wingle Keeping the original span (Fig. 6(¢). and again maintaining the bending moment integral, we have a new wing whose drag is also less than the elliptic wing (a) Bur is its drag more or less than (b)? This is where the debate sans! Inthe other diagrams on the right hand side of Fig. 6, 2) is ident- cal to (cl. 4 winglet above the wing. The Airbus ‘tip fence’ above sand below the wing is shown at) and canted winglt maintaining the same span at (0. Which is optimum ~ (8), (eM(@ fe) at (7711 Ihave to say Ido 001 know the ansiver All our ork inthe UK at File ton on behalf of Ainbus through the years has shown that there probably not a unigue answer to this. a8 many secondary isues tome into play and it very much depends on the overall opimisstion of the wine design and the requirements of the project in question My personal view is thu as long as there is no span restriction on the lncrat then the planar high span “inboard loaded” wing. perhaps With 2 celatively small tip device. is hard 10 beat. Indeed R.T. Jones proposes tha. fr idealised wings optimised forthe integrat- ‘ed bending moment. te optimum span is 10% higher than the ellip tic loaded wing, giving 10% less drag. This can be matched. but no beaten by 2 winglet of height 158 semi-span on a wing ofthe same span as the elipti wing. However. other references appear ro come ‘a different conclusions ‘Continuing the theme of optimising winglets inthe context of the effects on the ving structure, | will rele to 8 few particular points of interest. Firsly, in Fig. 7 is plowed the loci of drag vs wing (root) bending moment for winglets of different heights 2 the load onthe winglt itself is varied (simplisticaly toe-ing the winglet nose ino nose out), The traditional optimum winglets giving the best drag fedietion for their height are shown by the locus AB. However, the «eve optimum locus for drag against bending moment isthe line CD. ‘That is. compared with a winglet optimised for minimum drag. there is always a more lighly loaded taller winglet that gives less drag tor the same effect on bending moments. The analogy withthe higher span wing is teresting "Another important ive that has to be addressed in the real world is stvcoral flexibility. Panieularly on high aspeet ratio swept wings for large aircraft, Mexbiliy eftects are very imponant. As the load comes on and speed increases the wing bends upwards and wists nose down. The geomeiry of swept wing means thatthe upward bending also eauses te local incidence othe flow onthe outer Wing636 "THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL Drag winglet off winglet on Figure 6. Etec of wing to twist 09 drag, to reduce. This eects shown forthe wing ip of an Airbus airraft in Fig. & As aireratt weight mcteases the Up incidence reduces snd the drag varies along the curves A:B (singlet off) or A’-B" Owing ‘on|. This is particularly relevant if one is applying « winglet to an ‘existing design or. for example. light testing a winglet 0 confirm its effectiveness. Adding the wingle fundamentally increases the load near the tip (Ref. Lanchester) and hence results in reducing the tip Incidence through the wing bending effect. At light aircraft weights (in this example) there is a significant drag reduction due to the Wwinglet (A-A") bul at higher sireraft- weights mest of the improvement may disappear (B-B') ‘Another effect of wing bending ison the direction of the loud vec tor on the winglet ise. Sketched in Fig. (a) is a winglet which is canted outboard on the ground. but in cruising flight is eased 10 2 vertical position by the deflection of the wing. The load vector on ( winglet is then directed horizontally inboard. and for a large fing con ive » significa meen about the inboard wing. prtttne tides lead ad mowtg wing weigh However a Minti 2h manorteconivont (Fg Nhe wing bang ay DE sch al efector en Winget pss bel Mie Tot ping sme eke he deen se ak om he et Qing ruding some wight seacion Toe fundamen ineser it ning moments tou he mi tn ee Ming secs Sl remain foun Satter of desing te ving it Winget becras extemely compl una lr ample at concave aeryeanie and Soca design optimison essen Effect of dihedral ‘bend’ at 2.59 on the influence of the winglet ‘direct load’ on the wing-root bending moment A : * \ te conaion: 280 conation newrateeaiee, TP Rewnge sree inereates the wing root ‘ecreasas the wing e0! Deraing moment benaing moment Figure 8. Etec! of wing bencing on winglet loa vector. Novewser 2001, Figure 10. Transonicaerolois ~ pressure distribution development 6.0 FROM INDUCED DRAG TO FORM DRAG Moving on now 10 another aspect of enuse drag. Transoaie serofol design tr todays airliners progressed dramatically through the 1960s ‘nd 1970s, with mare evolutionary changes since then. The aerofoils forthe frst eeneraion jets. for example forthe Comet show in Fis 10a), were designed for inenmpresible flow and carried very Ile load in the supersonic ow in from of sn eetly shock wave as Mach number inereased. During the early 1960s. the “peaky’ concept was developed by Pearcey ei ui at the National Physical Laboratory. ‘which allowed the development of a larger supersonic region before the shock wave limited the maximum lif/érag ratio the section could ‘develop. The wing section was now designed using the early computer methods. bat basicaly sill incompressible flow using ‘compressibility Factors’ to allow for (subsonic) Mach number effects, At the same lime the “ear loading’ concept was developed to increase the load caried by’ the rear of the section. These advances were bil in tothe wing design forthe fis Airbus, the A300B (Fig. 10(b)). With the huge advance in computing power in the 1970s. for de fst me the ‘ero could be designed theoreucally in transonie flow conditions. ‘This allowed the shock wave to be pushed Turiher aft on the chord without strengthening. and also allowed further developments in the rear loading concep. all of which was built nto the A31D (ig, 100) sand A320 desions. The development of the pressure distribuuons in ig. 10 has been shown in terms of continuing to increase the lit carried by the section. According 1 project requirements, this, improvement can equally be taken out in terms of increased wing thickness or inereased Mach number capability before the onset of limiting shock waves. Figure 11 Trangone aero optimisationJur WING AERODYNAMICS AND THE SCIENCE OF COMPROMISE, 67 - drooped leading 0098 Figure 12. Wing section leasing hightow speed estimation. However cand there hau to be one! one cannot keep going further inthis direction without steepening the pressure recovery a the rear ff the top surface and somewhat further forward on the bottom ‘surface causing thiekening of the boundary layers and increases in the form drag cf the wing section, The results are indicated Fig. 11. A traditional aerofoil will end to have a low basi drag b av eruise Mach numbers the shock wave develops at alow C; (i coefficient) and drag rapidly increases (Fig. |1(a)), Aerofoil (©) in Fig. 11 has been optimally designed in transonic flow forthe cruise Tift range required. Aerofoil(c) has been designed with increased rear camber t0 optimise tansonic characteristics and rear loading bout has paid too high 2 penalty in form drag. An example of a pure aerodynamic optimisation this time. although practical consiera tions are not far away! As shown in the sketches ofthe aerofils in Fig. 10. the wailing edge angle is reducing significantly. almost to 2et9 in modern aerofols. This has two effects. it makes the trailing ledge pressure more negative. reducing the rear pressure gradient on the wing top surface. and helps increase the rear loading without increasing the top surtace pressure gradients. However this is atthe txpense of depth over the rear of the section with adverse effets on the weight of the Naps and other secondary structure atthe rear of ‘he wing ~ anatner balance tobe struck ‘A wick” which is used to make the wailing edge pressure vet more negative isto make the tailing edge “blunt. ch i, 10 give ita base ‘thickness (arofoils (bi and (c) in Fig 11), However. once again. one Figure 4. Leading eoge sit unnecessary? then has to wade the improvement an the wing upper surface with the drag increase due to the more negative pressufe acting on the bhase of the serofol, yet another balance. Our werk on Airbus wing Sections fas shown 8 base depth around A of wing chord 10 be optimum, 7.0 FROM HIGH SPEED TO LOW SPEED As sell as optimising for high subsonic Mach umber cruising ‘conditions. the wing aso has to provide adequate ltt for take-off and landing conditions. universally for large aireraft through the prov son of moving tailing edge devices (Maps) and, quite often. with Feading edge devices 3s well. Without going into a weatise on such high Lt devices, do want to review one aspect where, sain, opt rmslion between often conflicting requirements is required The leading edge design of an aerofoil can have a dramatic effec! fon low speed maximum lift capability as well as controlling the Supersonic or “soperentical’ flow develepment on the cruise. The feTodynumics teum | joied al Hatfield had been involved in the design of the Comet ind Trident airliners. and the HS125 business Jet (Stil in production’, and had been developing a methodology for improving the Tow speed high lit capability of transonic wing seetins. The technique was to apply’ a Groop to the leading edge (Fig. 12) to reduce the curvatures trom the stagnation region © the Point where the suction peak develops at high lew speed lif coeff ents. The advance achieved was to ensure the “peaky” supersonic Flew thon sill developed at high speed. albeit slightly Tuner aft on the chore. The amout of “debop’ is also limites By a suction peak ¥eveloping an the lower surface under the 'chin’ of the droop. as ‘indicated in Fig. 12. Tis also has to be designed carefully as this, ‘ea will so “superentica” at low cruise lft coefficients. Observing Fig. 12, it may be seen that there isa loss of area (lift) between the upper and lower surface pressure distributions. which canbe of onder 1-24 of design lift coefficient. one more balance ‘As sated. the effect on low speed maximum lift can be dramatic. ‘An example theoreeal calculation (but nonetheless accurate) forthe {roop a drawn is shown in Fig. 13. The increase inthe section ‘maximum lift in this case is 2 relatively modest 11%. The benefis ‘ectually achieved forthe eatment applied tothe eading edge ofthe for the HSH6 (now the Avo RIX family) wos Significantly higher. and allowed this shor take-off and landing Aircrai io achieve a very high landing lift coefficient of nearly 35 Without using a leading edge moving device such asa sla (Fig. 14). ‘This technology 1s ako being applied 10 the leading edge design for the new A3O0M miliary tactical sirlifier proposal 8.0 OPTIMISING LEADING EDGE HIGH LIFT DEVICES I the design requitements are such that a igh lift device on the ‘wing leading edge s fundamentally necessary. then pethaps ene should claim maximum benefit for the cruise lt coeficent and remove the droop? Well, no, not necessarily:638 ‘THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL ‘Simplified (circular arc} slat mechanism - reduced rotation angle Figure 15. Elect o! sat leading-edge reatment on rotation angle, ‘Treating the slat leading edge in the way already described has ‘wo beneficial effects. Fieily, it means thatthe slat does ot have to he rotated s0 far nose down to suppress its leading edge suction peak {Fi 15), This also helps to lower the peak that develops on the main serotoll behind the slat tailing edge. overall increasing the maxi: ‘ui Ife that can be obtained. Secondly. si can atten simplify the deployment mechanism (due 10 the lower rotation angle). allowing circular are tracks (o be used that would otherwise protrude through ‘he wing bottom surface atthe rear ak the slat retracs, Further, this helps 10 have aerodynamically acceptable intermediate slat settings for take-off. without recourse fo having to hinge the sat on the ce lar are support racks and ‘programming’ the angle with separate control tacks. Maximising the capability of the leading edge device allows simplification ofthe tailing edge Maps. depending on project requirements. For example, it proved possible 10 simplify the outer ‘lap on the A310 from an expanding vane device toa simple fowler ap Fig, 160 ‘All the above considerations have led us to design in sigiticant leading edge “ér00p" to Airbus wing sections fr all of the family 9.0 IS THE SLAT THE OPTIMUM DEVICE? So. if increasing the leading ee radius (reducing the curvature) on the slut is beneficial. and one 1s mot constrained by high speed ‘equiremens, why no go further? Boeing did just that on the 747 a From To Figure 16. Simolcauon of A310 lian system, Novemser 2001 Kruger stowed Figure 17, Flonbla Kruger sit, With a “Dexible Kroeger" sla. Such a device is shovin in Fig. 17. tusing a folding ‘D-nose” and a flexible panel which is deployed into ‘ts corect profile ané postion by a “scistorlink” mechanism, The contour of he device when deployed is shown in Fig. 18 compared ‘with 2 slat of the same chord length. Then perhaps one would envis- age tat the maximum lift achievable would be higher? In the late 1970s we conducted what would now be called a ‘multi-disciplined” investigation into many alternative high lift devices. both for the arailing edge and the leading edge. For the Fate. the study boiled down tothe Stat vs the Flexible Krueger in all, respec: aerodynamics, structure. mechanisms. weight snd cost (Once the structural and mechanical aspects were taken into account 1 was found that with the space required for the leading ede suppor ribs. etcetera. in front of a common front spe positon. then the chord of the flexible Kroeger had to be reduced ad the resulting ‘comparison is shown in Fig, 19, Now the benefits are no! so obvious. Stanging back trom the deals. the Krueger is deployed into a raed Position relative to te sat and the overll downward comber applied to the Front ofthe lifting system is higher with he sla The result of the 1970s study was that as an overall solution, cluding the weight, cost and maintainability issues, the slat on tizcular arc tacks came outa eleer winner. and has withstood subse ‘quent challenges 10 be the main leading edge device on all Airbus, erat. This success was in no small measure due to the leading ‘edge treatment developed to improve the capability of the sl Flexible Kruger Slat Higher CL max? Figure 18, Flextie Kruger vs slat (common chee lena)jure WING AERODYNAMICS AND THE SCIENCE OF COMPROMISE 639 Flexible Kruger Structuraumechanical constraints affect device ‘chords stowed in front of front spar Figure 19, Flexible Kruger vs slat (common spar gostion) 10.0 OPTIMISING AT THE AIRCRAFT LEVEL ln several of the preceding paragraphs I have repeatedly refered 10 the need to optimise the wing not only against different aerodynamic requirements. but also trading off against other parameters, such os ‘weight obviousy, that affect how th aircraft performs for the acine customer. Also that to reach the optimum solution requires study t0 significant depth in detail. Pung all this together is extremely complex and I wil retum to advances in this direction late. ‘One traditional method used for many years to assess the impact of various options is t0 minimise the direct operating cost (DOC ofthe airraft by a formulistic approach wich allows forthe aireraft ‘uilisation average hoursdistance thatthe aircraft is availabe to fly per day), crew. maintenance. navigation and landing charges, fue! costs and amonised finance charges for purchasing. the aircraft ‘Changes in cost of manufacture can be assessed on the basis of the cost Being passed on 10 the Aine in the purchase price leven if this is unlikely). Ina recent study. using such 2 method for a 250-seater aircraft fying an average stage length of 3,000 miles resulted in the {ollawing, to have a zeto effect on DOC: © 1% improvement in cruise drag is balanced by 404% increase in sirerafi empty weight oF approximately +1% inerease in wang ‘weight. Perhaps of increasing imporance these days. due to the effect on ‘emissions on the environment, isthe direct impact on fue! bum. In this case. for parity © 1% improvement in rsise drag is balanced by 0-7% increase in sirerafi empty weight The emissions issue will probably manifest itself as a fuel wx. ‘which would then reflect into DOC through an inevease in fuel cos. ‘moving the DOC party wards that for fuel bur. In resl numbers. lor un aterat with an empty weight of 100 tons. then if a 15e drag ton incurs more than a 400kg weight penalty itis not worth: in direct operating cost economics at todays fuel prices, but the break-even weight penalty becomes 750kg for fuel burn parity The aetual balance between drag and weight, which also depends lipon other parameters such as design range, hase direct effect on ‘he outcome ofthe trade studies and the selection of the optimum design, So let's po bac tothe case ofthe extended span wing inthe eater section on induced drag optimisation. Stating from a reference eli ‘cally loaded wing. Fig 20a, then a Illustrated before, there is @ second wing (1 of increased span with lower drag. However, 0) ‘pumising through a DOC ealeviation Hor example) it is possible ‘that some other wing is the real optimum, such asc). a wing of the Figure 20. Spanwise loading optimisation ‘same span as the ellie wing, whichis significantly lighter than the ‘This s the way we chose 10 fon the A310 for example. but again there is no unique answer 10 {his optimisation. it very mach depends on the projet in question. ‘The basic issue Isto ensure the coneepis and “rules” are understood. to be abe 10 make the right decisions. 11.0 BALANCING THE AIRCRAFT Staying with this example of optimising spanwise loading there is nother example where the need to optimise the wing within the Context ofthe complete aircraft configuration is essetil. This isthe need to maintain the aircraft in balance in pitch fore-and-at Fig. 21 Once all the requirements for sicraftloadabilty (passengers. bags fue) eici and handling are completed, then normally the effective centre of wing Lifts behind the cere of gravity, requiring a dawn Toad on the willane maintain a moment balance. Then to balance vertical fores this obviously requires an increase in lift onthe main ‘wing. inereasing ils crag to ad¢ to the penalty of the taplane dmoz However. for the induced drag due to the load carted Op the 160) surfaces there isa way of obtaining some compensation’ wing “ Taitpiane Figure 21. Aircraft fore and at balance640 “THE AERONAUTICAL JOURNAL, Figure 22, Max Munk ‘This neatly brings me back to one of the pioneets of theoretical ferodynamics and a contemporary ot Prandtl and Lanchester. Max Munk (Fig. 22). Fairly obviously at tha time, there was a lot of imeres in biplanes. Munk derived theorem 1 assist the calculation of the induced drag ofa biplane with different postions. spans and loadings of the 1Wo wings. The theorem stated that as lon as the loading on each wing Is unchanged. the induced drag of the biplane is independent ofthe fore-an-aft swagger between the so planes, (On the one hand this allows a much simpler calculation of the induced drag by putting the second plane ‘ar downsiream where there is no upetteam influence onthe fist plane, This of course can equally be applied to the ‘wim drag’ calculation for a modem siteraft, On the other hand it leads to-an interesting case 10 look at the spanwise loading on the wing n the presence of the til 10 op ‘mise total drag For tne admitedly simple case of th tailplane being atthe same haeight as the wing relative 10 the plane of the wailing voricity \Munk's Theorem allows us o bring the tailplane in the her direc: ‘ion. right up to the main wing and combine their Loads when cae. lating the induced drag! This is eviewed in Fig. 28 Curve 1a! of Fig. 23 shows an optimised wing spanwise loading ‘without allowing forthe loud on the tailplane, The wing load has then to be inereased (b/w alos forthe tailplane download. shown atc). Using Monk's Taeorer we can then simply ad the wo, (b) Figure 23. Spanaige easing, wing plus laipian. Novewser 2001 Figure 24. Optimised spanwise leading, wing pls tallane. tnd ce), 10 get the net load id) and calculate the total induced drag trom this load distribution, which clearly 1s not an optimum! A, better siuation can be derived as follows, illustrated in Fig. 24 Rather than wing (b) trom Fig. 28 (with the right load but signed in the absence of the tailplane). one designs 2 wing with loading (b") which his the same load but such that, when the tailplane load (c) is added. the resulting load distribution (d's act ally idemical to dstbution (a) in Fig. 23, Tis therefore much more ‘optimised from an induced drag point of view. The centre of load on the main wing due o the loading 1b" is also much Further inboard than (bl. helping bending moments and weight. As J sui befor, this is a much simplified ease — one would not go a Tatas this: for one thing the discontinuous load profile on the wing will lead 1 stone local vortex whick one could never tailor to exactly cancel atthe tailplane tp. Neither of eouse isthe tilplane ususlly a the same height as the wing. Nonetheless it does indicate the diection to £0 in optimising the induced drag at the complete aircraft level. This simplified model also gives a way of aseessng the possible benefits and changes to the wing required if one goes toa ednand layout with 2 tore-plane with uploud ~ ut that's smother story 12.0 THE SCIENCE OF OPTIMISATION AND CONCLUDING REMARKS Enough examples then. I hope I have demonstrated both the debt we continue 10 pay tothe early aerodynamiciss of a century of $0 ag0 and the enormous complexity involved in opaimising the wing of a ‘modem sieraft~ and Ihave not even started 10 discuss major struc: tural principles and systems aspects of engineering a complete wing! ‘Through the last wenty years there have been several iterations af developing automatic optimiser routines for a wing. such as the ‘multivariate analysis led by DERA (RAE) inthe late 703/s, the Future Projes’ “TADPOLE” routine used in Airbus UK and simile work by our German colleagues in Bremen. However. it is the advent of *hnowledze based engineering” software over the last ten ‘years that is now allowing us 10 go to the depth of analysis required {0 do the Job properly. The KBE sotiware used by Airbus UK at Filton captures the design rules and analysis for a generic design right through from optimising an overall sircraft configuration af the same generic type, downto detailed components of the seme generic Uesign, Where necessary. the KBE tool ean act as a framework t0 ‘un other analysis programmes a pat othe optimising process ‘These techniques were used for the firs ime at the component level on some parts ofthe A340-600 wing andl forthe first time atJuve WING AERODYNAMICS AND THE SCIENCE OF COMPROMISE oat Process improvernent example Integrated design Integrated aerodynamic analysis & processing | Sig Geometry (surfaces, MG) nee EES | ICAD driven process. icant improvement in cycle time & quality Loads & weights process Structural sizing Fuel tank model Fuel mass distribution Figure 25. Knowledge based engnesting - A360 apalcaon the wing. configuration level for the A380 (A3XX) - Fig. 25, ‘Through a 6 month period this allowed ws to Took at mone than 70) swing designs in considerable decal, rather than the S or 6 we could hhave done before inthe same time. Novetheless we are sil far away from taking the requirements. pushing the button and cut pops the ta for manufacture! We have, however. moved a long way. even in the thiny years since the design of the first Airbus to that ofthe A380 (Fig. 26), let alone in the 100 years or more since Lanchester took ut his patent for ‘eapping planes’ Figure 26, Arbus A360. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | would firs lke to thank Airbus for permission to publish thi lecture. In particular I must thank my many collegues over the years for the work that has made the wines for the Airbus family $0 successful and contributes tothe success of Albus ise. let alone ‘making this lecture possible. Funher. my thanks go to Dick Wiliams {or some of the fundamental input on winglets and ve James Chu for helping prepare the technical data REFERENCES Acwhovo, A.D. Lanchester ~ the man, Aetna! J. Apnil 1992. 96 (95. pp 119-14, he SIs Lanchester lector See ef page Laxcrstea. EW. Aeranamies, Constable & Co, London, 1907 Jones, RT Wing To: Princeton University res, 198 Serre JA. Invereence aspects of the AMO" high spec wing ‘configuration, AGARD-CP-28 pape 11-198,