Bionic design for the aerodynamic shape of a stratospheric airship

The aerodynamic shape of a stratospheric airship is closely to its aerodynamic drag and propulsion energy consumption. The physalia physalis, which has unique characteristics of cystic shape and flow resistance, provides important bionic inspirations for aerodynamic shape design of the stratospheric airships. This paper proposed a bionic methodology for aerodynamic shape design inspired by the physalia physalis. First, the morphological characteristics of the physalia physalis is investigated via image processing, and its profile is obtained using edge detection. Second, the aerodynamic shape of the stratospheric airship is designed via "morphological imitation", and the profile of the airship hull is described by function curves. Finally, the computational mesh model of the stratospheric airship is developed, and the drag coefficients, lift coefficients and lift-drag ratio are obtained by computation studies, respectively. Computation results demonstrate that the designed stratospheric airship has better aerodynamic performances than the conventional stratospheric airship. (C) 2019 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.