A CFD-based method to predict longitudinal and lateral-directional aerodynamic coefficients of an aircraft fuselage has been developed. A reliable aerodynamic characteristic estimation is crucial in order to carry out a well-designed aircraft. About 30% of an aircraft zero lift drag source is attained to the fuselage. Fuselage longitudinal instability is impacting on wing and horizontal tail design, whereas aircraft directional stability characteristics are strictly related to the fuselage aerodynamics. This paper proposes methods to estimate fuselage aerodynamic drag, pitching, and yawing moment coefficients. Given the fuselage geometry, simple user friendly charts allow to evaluate its aerodynamic characteristics. The method is here explained and numerical test cases are shown on several fuselage geometries. Finally, a comparison with typical semi-empirical methods is presented.
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