Cargo Transport Aircraft Conceptual Design

Cargo Transport Aircraft Conceptual Design

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Abstract

Over the past decades, Aircraft design series and/or industry have been aiming at providing a conceptual design to the cargo aircraft industries. This in turn offers a real world engineering design and the opportunity to explore within the field of cargo aircraft manufacturing. The cargo aircraft engineering design goal is to take off and easily land an aircraft, while carrying as maximum weight as possible. Similarly, the engineering design aims at automating the cargo handling processes, making the process easy and with minimal man-power.

Cargo Transport Aircraft Conceptual Design

The cargo transport aircraft conceptual design is one of the aircraft engineering designs, which aims at manufacturing or producing one of the world’s leading aircraft technologies. The designation of cargo aircrafts aims at creating an aircraft that can take off, travel (fly) and land with lots of technological ease, while carrying as much weight as possible. For such engineering goals to be met, the designers are obliged to apply the principles of aerodynamics, physics, material mechanics and other most appropriate engineering principles (Whitford, 2000). Nevertheless, there are various challenges facing the design process, that is, budget, time management, and team dynamics, which altogether create some unanticipated obstacles to the entire industry. Moreover, there exists particular forms of industrial competition, which may also lead to fall or collapse of a given aircraft company. In order to overcome such challenges and competition for a more successful outcome, the Cargo Transport Aircraft designers have to adopt, enhance and adjust their design according to the contemporary technologies along the way.  

The anticipated cargo aircraft type and size will highly and directly affect the type of materials to be transported, as well as the handling procedures adopted for them at the cargo terminals. According to Anderson (1997), various aircraft types have differing requirements for low containers, standard containers, pallets and igloos. Additionally, cargo aircrafts of the same family have patently dissimilar requirements depending on the type of goods transported, that is, being used as a mixed-payload or all-freight craft. A more successful cargo terminal design is one which is best adapted to the aircraft mix it receives over its working life. This denotes a level of optimal fit, as well as the degree of flexibility to adapt the world’s technological changes, both in short and long terms.

Aerodynamics

        One of the most essential sections is the tail design of a cargo aircraft since it holds the rudder which the aircraft uses to balance out any yaw generated during a rolling maneuver. The tail also helps in stabilizing the plane during flight. Even though the tail produces no lift, it does produce drag hence its design has to eliminate as much drag as possible (Kuchemann, 1978). One of the ways of minimizing the tail drag during aircraft design is by raising the tail above the wings to ensure that it stays out of the whirlwinds caused by the wings hence preventing any possible drag, which can result from such interaction. During the design processes, every wing features from the shape of airfoil, the twist in the wing, ratio of length to the surface area, and even how far the wings are swept back, must be taken into consideration.

        The wing camber is the curved line that connects the point of the leading edge to the point of the trailing edge, which is exactly amidst the lower and upper surface of the airfoil. An airfoil is said to have a higher camber when its camber is more curved. The camber of an airfoil therefore, determines the coefficient of lift at zero angle of attack hence the wings of a cargo aircraft should be long but not too wide (Whitford, 2000). Stability is another important consideration in design of wings. The wings should be top of the fuselage, such that the fuselage rides beneath the wings. Supposing an aircraft rolls in flight, causing the plane to turn, the fuselage forces it back into its normal position hence, stability.

         By selecting an appropriate propeller, the cargo aircraft will have an additional value of pounds of thrust available for it at a maximum throttle (Kuchemann, 1978). This will in turn translate to a higher acceleration of the aircraft along the highway, and thus an amplified velocity and more lift. Optimization of lift may require several calculations with the most essential and governing equation of:  Flift = ½ ClA_v2, where Cl represents the lift coefficient, which is a function of AoA, A is the area, as well as the span multiplied by the chord.