Fundamental considerations in the design and performance assessment of propulsive fuselage aircraft concepts

Abstract Propulsive fuselage aircraft complement the two under-wing turbofans of current aircraft with an embedded propulsion system within the airframe to ingest the energy-rich fuselage boundary layer. The key design features of this embedding are examined and related to an aero-propulsive performance assessment undertaken in the absolute reference frame which is believed to best evaluate these effects with intuitive physics-based interpretations. First, this study completes previous investigations on the potential for energy recovery for different fuselage slenderness ratios to characterise the aerodynamics sensitivity to morphed fuselage-tail design changes and potential performance before integrating fully circumferential propulsors. Its installation design space is then explored with macro design parameters (position, size and operating conditions) where an optimum suggests up to 11% fuel savings during cruise and up to 16% when introducing compact nacelles and re-scaling of the under-wing turbofans. Overall, this work provides valuable insights for designers and aerodynamicists on the potential performance of their concepts to meet the environmental targets of future aircraft.