Objective In order to improve the carrying efficiency of the ground effect aircraft, a new type of two-segment wing layout ground effect aircraft is proposed based on the wing root widening and forward-swept design.

Method First, by comparing wings with root widening and forward-swept wings, the performance differences of different layouts in high-altitude cruise and low-altitude flight are systematically analyzed. Then, the variation patterns of lift, drag, and lift-to-drag ratio are combined with local pressure distribution to achieve a unified analysis of performance and mechanism. Finally, the aerodynamic characteristics of both wing root widening and straight wing aircraft are calculated in detail by FLUENT.

Results The results show that the lift-drag ratio of the forward-swept straight wing aircraft is relatively larger during the high-altitude cruise state. The lift-drag ratio of the wing root widening aircraft is greatly improved compared with straight wing aircraft during ground effect flight, and the lift-drag ratio is up to 26.6. The ground effect can significantly increase the lift coefficient and lift-drag ratio while reducing the drag coefficient of ground effect aircraft, and the relative increase of the lift coefficient of the wing root widening aircraft (up to 19.5%) and the relative decrease of the drag coefficient (maximum 29.1%), and relative increase of lift-drag ratio (up to 66.1%) are all higher than that of straight wing aircraft, indicating that the wing root widening enhances the ground effect. The area and strength of the high-pressure region under the wing gradually increases when the flight altitude decreases.

Conclusion The research results can provide a technical reference for the design of ground-effect aircraft.