• Advances in aircraft and spacecraft science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.141-158
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• 2023

In current research work, the aerodynamics performance of a newly designed large flying V aircraft is numerically investigated. Three Flying V configurations, with V-angles of 50°, 70° and 90° that represent the minimum, moderate, and maximum configurations respectively, were designed and modeled to assess their aerodynamic performance at cruise flight conditions. The unstructured mesh was developed using ICEM CFD and Ansys-Fluent was used as an aerodynamic solver. The developed models were numerically simulated at cruise flight conditions with a Mach number equal to 0.15. K-ω SST turbulence model was chosen to account for flow turbulence.The authors performed steady flow simulations.The results obtained from the experimentation reveal that the maximum main angle configuration of 90° had the highest C_Lmax value of 0.46 compared to other configurations. While the drag coefficient remained the same for all three configurations, the 50° V-angle configuration achieved the maximum stall angle of 35°. With limited stall delay benefits, the flying V possesses no sufficient stability, due to the flow separation detected at whole elevon and winglet suction side areas at AoA equal and higher than 30°.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.297-305
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• 2018

The role of UCAV is to carry out various missions in hostile situations such as penetration and attack on the enemy territory. To this end, application of RF stealth technology is indispensable so as not to be caught by enemy radar. The X-47B UCAV with blended wing body configuration is a representative aircraft in which modern RCS reduction schemes are heavily applied. In this study, a model UCAV was first designed based on the X-47B platform and then an extensive RCS analysis was conducted to the model UCAV in the high-frequency regime using the Ray Launching Geometrical Optics (RL-GO) method. In particular, the effects of configuration of UCAV considering IR reduction on RCS were investigated. Finally, the effects of RAM optimized for the air intake of the model UCAV were analyzed.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.34-41
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• 2023

This paper applies the icing effect and wing rock uncertainty to small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have recently attracted attention. Attitude control simulations were performed using various control methods. First, the selected platform, the Skywalker X8 UAV with blended wing-body (BWB) configuration, was linearized for both its baseline form, and a form with applied icing effects. Subsequently, using MATLAB SimulinkⓇ, simulations were conducted for roll and pitch attitude control of the baseline configuration and the configuration with icing effects, employing disturbance observer-based PID control, model reference adaptive control, and model predictive control. Furthermore, the study introduced wing rock uncertainty simultaneously with icing effects on the configured model-a combination not previously explored in existing research-and conducted simulations. The performance of each control Method was compared and analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2018

Lambda wing type Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle(UCAV) which adopts Blended Wing Body(BWB) has relatively less drag and more stealth performance than conventional aircraft. However, Pitching moment is rapidly increased at a specific angle of attack affected by leading edge vortex due to leading edge sweep angle. Wind tunnel testing and numerical analysis were carried out with UCAV 1303 configuration on condition of 50 m/s of flow velocity, $-4^{\circ}{\sim}28^{\circ}$ of the range of angle-of-attack. The effect of wing twist for longitudinal stability at the various angles of attack was verified in this study. When negative twist is applied on the wing, Pitch-break was onset at higher angle of attack due to delayed flow separation on outboard of the wing. On the other hand, pitch-break was onset at lower angle of attack and lift-to-drag ratio was increased when positive twist is applied on the wing.

• Proceeding of EDISON Challenge
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• 2016.03a
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• pp.554-559
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• 2016

본 논문은 EDISON CFD를 사용하여 스포일러가 장착된 무미익 BWB UCAV에 대하여 이차원 유동해석을 수행하였다. 무미익 형상은 일반적인 항공기보다 롤과 요 방향의 안정성과 조성성에 있어 불리한 특징을 갖는데 특히 이 착륙 시 고 받음각의 영역에서 발생하는 Pitch-up 현상이 항공기 안정성에 문제를 야기한다. 수직 미익 부재와 pitch-up 현상으로 인한 BWB형상의 UCAV가 지니는 단점을 보완하기 위해서 스포일러가 장착된 형상이 적용되기도 한다 본 연구에서는 윗면과 아랫면에 스포일러가 장착된 경우에 대해 전산유동해석을 수행하였다. 해석결과 윗면의 스포일러는 양력의 감소와 항력의 증가를 야기했으며, 아랫면의 스포일러는 양력과 항력을 모두 증가시켰다. 피칭모멘트의 경우 아랫면의 스포일러가 저받음각에서 안정성을 증가시켰다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.579-582
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• 2008

PEM Fuel cell system was designed and constructed to use as a power source of unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV) in the present study. Sodium borohydride was selected as a hydrogen source and was decomposed by catalytic hydrolysis reaction. Fuel cell system consists of a fuel cell stack, a hydrogen generation system(HGS), and power management system(PMS). HGS was composed of a catalytic reactor, micropump, fuel cartridge, and separator. Hybrid power system between lithium-polymer battery and fuel cell was developed. The fuel cell system was integrated and packaged into a blended wing-body UAV. Energy density of the total system was 1,000 $W{\cdot}hr/kg$ and high endurance more than 5 hours was accomplished in the ground tests.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.70-80
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• 2016

The comparison of two commercial codes(FLUENT and STAR-CCM+) and an open-source code(OpenFOAM) are carried out for the aerodynamic analysis of flight vehicles at low speeds. Tailless blended-wing-body UCAV, main wing and propeller of HALE UAV(EAV-3) are chosen as geometries for the investigation. Using the same mesh, incompressible flow simulations are carried out and the results from three different codes are compared. In the linear region, the maximum difference of lift and drag coefficients of UCAV are found to be less than 2% and 5 counts, respectively and shows good agreement with wind tunnel test data. In a stall region, however, the reliability of RANS simulation is found to become poor and the uncertainty according to code also increases. The effect of turbulence models and meshes generated from different tools are also examined. The transition model yields better results in terms of drag which are much closer to the test data. The pitching moment is confirmed to be sensitive to the existence and the location of transition. For the case of EAV-3 wing, the difference of results with ${\kappa}-{\omega}$ SST model is increased when Reynolds number becomes low. The results for the propeller show good agreement within 1% difference of thrust. The reliability and uncertainty of three codes is found to be reasonable for the purpose of engineering use. However, the physical validity and reliability of results seem to be carefully examined when ${\kappa}-{\omega}$ SST model is used for aerodynamic simulation at low speeds or low Reynolds number conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.422-428
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• 2019

A tailless or Blended-Wing-Body(BWB) shaped configuration is highlighted for UCAV with low RCS characteristics. The BWB configuration is characterized by its directional static instability and low controllability. To control the directional movement of the BWB configured vehicle, directional thrust vectoring equipment or drag rudder typed control surfaces which utilize the drag differences of the wing can be considered. This paper deals with a BWB shaped configuration using a spoiler and describes the lateral-directional aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle. In addition, it is shwon that the lateral-directional motion can be controlled effectively by using the classical PI control structure. This control law is verified by flight test and showed adequate for the tailless BWB shaped UAV.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 2017

An electromagnetic (EM) wave absorber reduces the possibility of radar detection by minimizing the radar cross section (RCS) of structures. In this study, a radar absorbing structure (RAS) was applied to the leading edge of a blended wing body aircraft to reduce RCS in X-band (8.2~12.4GHz) radar. The RAS was composed of a periodic pattern resistive sheet with conductive lossy material and glass-fiber/epoxy composite as a spacer. The applied RAS is a multifunctional composite structure which has both electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbing ability and load-bearing ability. A two dimensional unit absorber was designed first in a flat-plate shape, and then the fabricated leading edge structure incorporating the above RAS was investigated, using simulated and free-space measured reflection loss data from the flat-plate absorber. The leading edge was implemented on the aircraft, and its RCS was measured with respect to various azimuth angles in both polarizations (VV and HH). The RCS reduction effect of the RAS was evaluated in comparison with a leading edge of carbon fabric reinforced plastics (CFRP). The designed leading edge structure was examined through static structural analysis for various aircraft load cases to check structural integrity in terms of margin of safety. The mechanical and structural characteristics of CFRP, RAS and CFRP with RAM structures were also discussed in terms of their weight.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.439-449
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• 2018

In this paper, multi-objective optimization of a multi-bubble pressure cabin in the underwater glider with Blended-Wing-Body (BWB) is carried out using Kriging and the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II). Two objective functions are considered: buoyancy-weight ratio and internal volume. Multi-bubble pressure cabin has a strong compressive capacity, and makes full use of the fuselage space. Parametric modeling of the multi-bubble pressure cabin structure is automatic generated using UG secondary development. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is employed to study the structural performance using the commercial software ANSYS. The weight of the primary structure is determined from the volume of the Finite Element Structure (FES). The stress limit is taken into account as the constraint condition. Finally, Technique for Ordering Preferences by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is used to find some trade-off optimum design points from all non-dominated optimum design points represented by the Pareto fronts. The best solution is compared with the initial design results to prove the efficiency and applicability of this optimization method.