Systematic approach to analyze, evaluate and select box wing aircraft configurations from modified morphological matrices

Abstract

Different configurations of the box wing aircraft have been studied in a systematic way with Morphological Analysis followed by an evaluation based on Cost- Benefit Analysis. Morphological Analysis first breaks down the box wing aircraft into its major basic components like box wing, horizontal tail surface, vertical tail surface, fuselage, engine and landing gear. The box wing is further differentiated with respect to its type of sweep, stagger and vertical position. Similarly, all the other basic components are analyzed and unpractical outcomes are discarded. The proposed Modified Morphological Analysis combines parameters and rules out unfeasible partial solutions in steps arriving at final candidate configurations with little overhead. The outcomes from this analysis are 18 feasible box wing aircraft configurations. Box wing aircraft with unstaggered wing, both wings backward swept, low-high box wing vertical position, conventional tail, conventional fuselage is the most suitable design. The same box wing aircraft configuration but with low-super high box wing vertical position is the second best configuration. If the decision is taken to design a rather unconventional box wing aircraft, negative stagger, both wings swept in opposite sense (forming a diamond in the top view), V-tail, conventional fuselage is concluded to be the most feasible to enter more detailed box wing aircraft design.