Aerodynamic and overall parameters analysis of buoyancy-lifting hybrid airship

In order to balance the aerodynamic performance and buoyancy-lifting characteristics of airship, to make full use of their advantages and to strengthen the controllability, a hybrid airship configuration which has combined envelopes that are based on high lift NACA airfoil was proposed. With computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and FLUENT computing modeling, the lift-drag characteristics, longitudinal static stability and buoyancy-lifting property under different velocities and attack angles of the airship were simulated, furthermore, its overall performance was evaluated and lastly it was compared with conventional airship. The results show that the airship configuration with combined envelopes has good aerodynamic performance and efficiency. It can produce three times aerodynamic lift than that of conventional airship under the same condition. When the magnitude of cruise velocity is greater than 26 m/s, hybrid airship begins to have a higher total lift efficiency and better buoyancy-lift property. Besides, the hybrid airship's size is smaller than conventional airship under the same design load, which contributes to increasing payloads. This can provide a reference for low-attitude large hybrid airship's research.