Systematic Tailplane Design for an Aircraft Family Concept

Abstract

Liquid Hydrogen (LH2) appears as one of the leading solutions for sustainable aviation, with rear-fuselage tanks being one of the preferred options for fuel integration in conventional tube & wing designs. Studies have already identified some limitations of these concepts concerning the larger horizontal tailplane required. However, no studies so far considered the industry approach of sharing a single tailplane in an aircraft family for this type of aircraft. The thesis draws some first guidelines for the design of LH2 aircraft families with rear tanks, with a special focus on the performance penalties due to tailplane commonality and its comparison to conventional designs. For this purpose, a methodology has been developed that systematically sizes the tailplane of an aircraft considering potential family members already in the preliminary design stage. The results revealed that lower performance penalty due to tailplane commonality can be expected for an LH2 family compared to kerosene powered designs.