Optimization of Control Surface Deflections on the High Aspect Ratio Wing to Improve Cruise Flight Performance

Future highly efficient long-haul aircraft take advantage of increased cruise performance due to wings of higher aspect ratio and geared turbofan engines. Further improvements can be achieved by using the control surfaces to adapt the wing shape to different flight conditions. The objective of the present work is to optimize the control surface deflections of a long-haul aircraft to reduce block fuel and thus the CO2 emissions. An optimization of the deflection angles of six control surfaces along the trailing edge of the high aspect ratio wing has been performed. In this optimization process, a flow solver based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equation is used to determine the cruise performance considering the static aeroelastic deformations for three different flight conditions. Depending on the flight mission a fuel burn reduction between \({0.5}{\%}\) and \({1.7}{\%}\) is predicted.