Any next-generation single-aisle airliner will have to be radically different in structure and shape than today's Airbus A320 and Boeing 737-class aircraft if it is to deliver the efficiency gains made possible by carbonfibre and very high bypass engines, according to a leading industry technology expert.
Phil Grainger, senior technical director and chief technologist at GKN Aerospace, says that the next single-aisle airliner "has to be an order of magnitude better than what's available today".
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He told Flight that advances in manufacturing technology offer the prospect of moving beyond today's use of carbonfibre to lighten existing "tube and wing" shapes. While fully blended wings may never be practical in airliners, carbonfibre should allow economic production of aircraft featuring "some degree of blending" of wings, vertical control surfaces and nacelles, he says.
Radical changes to airliner shapes will be dictated by more than demands to improve aerodynamic efficiency, he says. Critically, the very high bypass engines needed to reduce fuel burn tend to be too large to mount under the wing of single-aisle aircraft. These considerations dictate a "very different" wings and engine layout, which Grainger expects to be "aft-based".
Source: Flight International
