Control Device Studies for Yaw Control without Vertical Tail Plane on a 53° Swept Flying Wing Configuration

Abstract

The present investigations cover studies of different control devices on a 53° swept flying wing configuration without vertical tail plane. For the numerical simulations the RANS solver DLR-TAU was used to analyze the influences on the aerodynamic characteristics of the different control device concepts. The boundary conditions of the control devices result from the flight dynamic requirements which have been worked out in the NATO STO/AVT-251 Task Group. The challenge of the present work is to provide yaw control with a sufficient yawing moment with almost no contribution in rolling and pitching moment. To identify such concepts, a number of preliminary experiments on a generic flying wing configuration have been conducted. After that, three different concepts were numerically examined in the present study. Concepts with spoilers, a wingtip flap and a split flap were analyzed. For medium to high angle of attack the flow topology is dominated by a vortical flow field on the upper outer wing. This leads to a control device vortex interaction which influences the flow and the attitude of the control device on the upper wing side. The effects of the interaction are different for each type of control device shown in this work. Therefore, a detailed consideration of different control devices and their influences on the entire system is of crucial importance