BWB Aircraft - The Future Aircraft

Assalamualaikum and Hi...

All of us know about the plane, right? Plane or also known as aircraft is a machine or vehicle that capable to fly for traveling through the air in the long distance (Merriem-Webster). The main purpose of the airplane creation is to bring people to travel from one place to another place in the long distance which cannot be reached by using the land transportation or maybe it might take very long time. 

The interesting about the aircraft that I would like to share with all of u is the BWB aircraft. The BWB or Blended Wing Body aircraft is the future aircraft that currently has been successfully tested by Boeing and NASA. Similar with the commercial aircraft, this BWB is created for the air transportation and also for military purpose. But, the most different thing between these two commercial aircraft and BWB aircraft are in term of design and the features.

Commercial Aircraft
(Source: http://eofdreams.com/aircraft.html)

Blended Wing Body Aircraft

(Source: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/FS-2003-11-81-LaRC.html)

A video of Blended Wing Body by NASA
(Source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmbCvS5gMF8)

According to Wirachman Wisnoe et al, the blended wing body is the aircraft where the fuselage (body) is blended together with the wing and tail into a single lifting surface. By this modification, the aircraft can reduce the drag due to the smooth junction between the wings and the fuselage. The BWB is a combination of flying-wing aircraft and the conventional aircraft where the body is designed to have a shape of an airfoil. The advantage of this BWB concept is  the loading capabilities by creating a wide body in the center of the wing to allow space for passengers and cargo. Especially, for very large transport aircraft, the BWB concept is better compared to conventional aircraft in terms of higher lift-to-drag ratio and less fuel consumption.

What a worth thing that I was experienced before when conducting the study and analyzing the BWB simulation for UITM in my Final Year Project (FYP). Universiti Teknologi MARA (UITM) has started the researches on BWB since September 2005. The aim of the project is to study and analyze the aerodynamics performance of the BWB aircraft by using the wind tunnel test.
  
The first UITM BWB model is BWB-Baseline I where it has no canard and the research on this BWB is the study of the effect of the elevator on the aerodynamics performance. 

 UITM BWB-Baseline I

Then, starting on 2009, UITM BWB comes out with the new design named BWB-Baseline II. This new design of aircraft is equipped with a pair of canards which located in front of its main wings. 

UITM BWB-Baseline II

The Baseline II actually is a revolution of Baseline I where it has a simpler planform and slimmer body compared with Baseline I. There are several revolutions under BWB-Baseline II such as BWB-Baseline II E1, E2, E3, E4 and currently E5.   

UITM BWB-Baseline II-E5

The new design for UITM BWB aircraft is BWB-Baseline II-E5 that I used in my FYP project. The characteristics of this new design are consists of the rectangular shape of canards and the main wings are twisted up.