Multidisciplinary evaluation of truss-braced wing for future green aircraft

The truss-braced wing configuration is a promising innovative design for future green aircraft. Some preliminary studies are conducted to explore the full potential of TBW in a multidisciplinary way. A structural model for wing sizing and weight calculation of a TBW is provided. As truss buckling under negative loads is the most critical structural problem, a topology optimization is performed to give a few promising TBW concepts. Different TBW concepts are optimized using full-stress optimization and the calculations reveal the significant influence of the truss on the bending material weight of the wing. The 3-jury configuration can achieve a maximum bendingweight reduction of about 40% and is further evaluated by increasing span while keeping other geometric parameters constant. The results show that with the same wing weight, span of the TBW will be about 18% longer than the cantilever wing so that the induced drag is reduced by about 17%.