Relationship Between Wingspan and Fuselage Length in Aircraft According to Engine Types

Year 2023, , 1 - 6, 17.03.2023

Seyhun Durmuş

https://doi.org/10.30518/jav.1163494

Abstract

The study aims to explain the size relationship between wingspan and fuselage length, which are the two basic design parameters that a designer is most curious about. Within the scope of the study, the relationship between take-off mass, fuselage length and wingspan of a total of 601 aircraft was questioned for single-piston, twin-piston, turboprop, and jet aircraft types. Power correlations were used for mass-based sizing of wingspan and fuselage length. In mass-based sizing, bad correlations were found for fuselage length for single-piston airplanes and good correlations for turboprops and jets. In terms of wingspan to fuselage length ratio (b/lfus) jets showed a more pronounced trend, ranging from 0.7 to 1.1, while other aircraft types showed different trends, ranging from 0.9 to 1.7. In general, racer, homebuilt, aerobatic, and light transport aircraft have low b/lfus ratios, while motor gliders, firefighters, patrol, and agricultural aircraft have high b/lfus ratios. The study is valuable in that it fills a gap in the literature by considering the relationship between wingspan and fuselage length both with correlations over mass and by revealing statistics according to aircraft types over proportional relationship.

Keywords

Aircraft design, Wingspan, Fuselage length, Power correlation, Aircraft sizing

References

• Abubakar, M. R., Basuno, B., & Hasan, S. (2013). Aerodynamics Analysis on Unsymmetrical Fuselage Models. In Applied Mechanics and Materials (Vol. 315, pp. 273-277). Trans Tech Publications Ltd.
• Anderson, B. K., & Takahashi, T. T. (2017). Conceptual fuselage design with direct CAD modeling. In 17th AIAA aviation technology, integration, and operations conference.
• Ardema, M. D., Chambers, M. C., Patron, A. P., Hahn, A. S., Miura, H., & Moore, M. D. (1996). Analytical fuselage and wing weight estimation of transport aircraft.
• Bejan, A., Charles, J. D., & Lorente, S. (2014). The evolution of airplanes. Journal of Applied Physics, 116(4), 044901.
• Bronz, M. (2012). A contribution to the design of long endurance mini unmanned aerial vehicles (Doctoral dissertation, Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace-ISAE).
• ICAO (1988). Annex 14: Aerodromes. International Civil Aviation Organ.
• ICAO (2017). Wake turbulence separation in RVSM airspace. Third meeting ATM SG/3-WP/27. Cairo, Egypt.
• Kruger, M., Huyssen, R. J., Smith, L., & Meyer, J. P. (2016). Application of a low fineness ratio fuselage to an airliner configuration. In 54th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (p. 1282).
• Liu, T. (2006). Comparative scaling of flapping-and fixed-wing flyers. AIAA Journal, 44(1), 24-33.
• Marta, A. C. (2008). Parametric study of a genetic algorithm using a aircraft design optimization problem. Report Stanford University, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
• McDavid, J., & Kühner, B. (2017). Empennage Sizing: The Tail Lever Arm as a Percentage of Fuselage Length Determined from Statistics. Digital Library-Projects & Theses-Prof. Dr. Scholz.
• Nicolosi, F., Della Vecchia, P., Ciliberti, D., & Cusati, V. (2016). Fuselage aerodynamic prediction methods. Aerospace Science and Technology, 55, 332-343.
• Niţă, M., & Scholz, D. (2010). From Preliminary Aircraft Cabin Design to Cabin Optimization-Part Ii. Deutscher Luft-und Raumfahrtkongress DLRK, 2010.
• Raymer, D. (2018). Aircraft design: a conceptual approach. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc
• Sforza, P. M. (2014). Commercial airplane design principles. Elsevier.
• Singh, V., Sharma, S. K., & Vaibhav, S. (2016). Transport aircraft conceptual design optimization using real coded genetic algorithm. International Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 2016.
• Jackson, P. (Ed.). (2004). Jane's All the World's Aircraft. Jane's. In various years.
• Torenbeek, E. (2013). Advanced aircraft design: conceptual design, analysis and optimization of subsonic civil airplanes. John Wiley & Sons.
• Wells, D. P., Horvath, B. L., & McCullers, L. A. (2017). The flight optimization system weights estimation method.
• Zhuravlev, P., & Zhuravlev, V. (2012). Significance of modifications for development of passenger airplanes. Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology.
• Zlotnick, M., & Diederich, F. W. (1952). Theoretical Calculation of the Effect of the Fuselage on the Spanwise Lift Distribution on a Wing.