The recent growth of interest in hybrid-electric and fully electric aircraft has led to a renewed focus on the design and optimization of propeller aircraft. Considering propeller–wing interaction provides the opportunity to design aircraft that take advantage of aerodynamic benefits through propulsion integration. In this paper, the cruise drag of a wing with an inboard-mounted tractor propeller is minimized using aerodynamic shape optimization. Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes computational fluid dynamics with an actuator-disk approach is used for the simulations, and a gradient-based algorithm is used for the optimization. Changing the rotation direction of the propeller and optimizing the twist and airfoil shapes of the wing impact the aerodynamic performance significantly. However, optimizing the wing while considering the propeller slipstream provides little additional benefit compared to optimizing it without considering the propeller slipstream (the difference is less than one drag count). The wings optimized without considering the propeller slipstream are naturally able to recover swirl almost as effectively as the wings optimized while considering the propeller slipstream, and the propeller-induced velocities for the cruise condition are not high enough to lead to significant airfoil-shape design changes.

最近对混合动力和全电动飞机的兴趣不断增长，导致人们重新将重点放在螺旋桨飞机的设计和优化上。考虑螺旋桨与机翼的相互作用为设计飞机提供了机会，这些飞机可通过推进集成利用空气动力学的优势。在本文中，采用空气动力学形状优化技术可将带有内置式拖拉机螺旋桨的机翼的巡航阻力降至最低。雷诺平均的Navier-Stokes计算流体动力学与执行器-磁盘方法一起用于仿真，而基于梯度的算法则用于优化。改变螺旋桨的旋转方向并优化机翼的扭曲和翼型形状会显着影响空气动力性能。然而，与不考虑螺旋桨滑流而对其进行优化相比，在考虑螺旋桨滑流的情况下对机翼进行优化几乎没有任何额外的好处（差异小于一个阻力数）。在不考虑螺旋桨滑流的情况下优化的机翼自然能够像在考虑螺旋桨滑流的情况下优化的机翼一样有效地恢复涡流，并且在巡航条件下由螺旋桨引起的速度不足以导致显着的机翼形状设计变化。