Aircraft Preliminary Design process

Delivered by Dr. Ngoc Anh Vu

Hierarchical Steps in Traditional Design
 Modern Systems Engineering
Integrated •Stakeholder Interface
•System Safety Management
Led by SE
Product/Process •Risk Management
•Product Baseline Management
Significant SE role
Development
•Implementation
• Market Plans Deployment of
Analysis •Deployment The Product
Strategy
PRODUCT LIFE-CYCLE ENGINEERING
Strategic System Detailed Development/ Operations
Design Design Design Fabrication & Life Cycle
Support
PRODUCT/SIMULATION LIFE-CYCLE MANAGEMENT

•System Req. • System •Identification of

• •Sys Req. Valid Verification upgrades
System •Operations/ Maint and •Capture lessons
Concep Concept validation learned
t •System Architecture •Lean - Six •MRO
•System Safety Sigma
Process
Improvement
 Aircraft Preliminary Design process
• The process is divided to eight parts:
 Sequence I & II
• Preliminary Design Sequence I:
The objective is to arrive at a
decision about the feasibility of a
certain configuration with a
minimum amount of engineering
work.

• Preliminary Design Sequence I I:

The objective is to arrive at a
realistic reasonably detailed layout
of an airplane configuration
• The configuration indeed meets all
requirements of mission
specifications?
Preliminary Design Sequence I
Preliminary Design Sequence II
 Aircraft Configuration Optimization
• OverView: The design process has, historically, ranged from
sketches on napkins (Fig. 1) to trial, error, and natural selection (Fig. 2), to
sophisticated computer-aided design programs (Fig. 3).

Figure 2. Aircraft
Design By Trial and
Error

Figure 3. Computer-
Figure 1. Aircraft concepts can Aided Design of
start with very rough sketches, Aircraft
as did the human powered
airplane, the Gossamer Condor.
What is the best Design of an Aircraft?

Multidisciplinary Design
Optimization (MDO)
Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
• Possible measures of performance:
1. Minimum empty weight
2. Minimum take-off weight (includes some measure
of efficiency as fuel weight is included)
3. Minimum direct operating cost (a commonly-used
measure)
4. Minimum total operating cost (a bit more difficult
to estimate)
5. Minimum system cost over X years (life-cycle cost)
6. Maximum profit
7. Maximum return on investment
8. Maximum payload per $ (Sometimes used for
military aircraft)
 Computational Methods in Aircraft
Design
• Role of Computational Methods
– Allow the simulation of the behavior complex systems
beyond the reach of analytic theory.
– Provide detailed design information in a timely fashion.
– Enhance our understanding of engineering systems by
expanding our ability to predict their behavior.
– Provide the ability to perform multidisciplinary design
optimization.
– Increase competitivity and lower design/production costs.
• Potential Problems Arising from the Misguided Use
of Computational Techniques
– A solution is only as good as the model that is being solved.
– The accuracy of a numerical solution depends heavily on
the sophistication of the discretization procedure
employed and the size of the mesh used.
– The range of validity of the results of a given calculation
depends on the model that is at the heart of the
procedure.
– Information overload
• Computational Aerodynamics

Computational
Cost?

Hierarchy of Aerodynamic Models with

Corresponding Complexity and Computational Cost
 • Sample Computational Calculations
Detail of viscous mesh for wind tunnel model
of the Blended Wing Body Configuration.
Notice the extreme bunching towards the
surface of the airplane in order to resolve the
high Reynolds number boundary layer.

Airbus A-320 flow solution and unstructured mesh

• Structural Analysis
– Structural analysis software is composed of
numerical methods that solve the discretized
structural equations of motion on a suitable mesh
that is created from the geometry of the
configuration in question.
– Software packages:
• MSC/NASTRAN
• ANSYS
• ABAQUS
• Control System Design
– The design of complex linear and non-linear
control systems in aircraft has also benefited
greatly from the appearance of computational
methods. These systems range from components
of an aircraft (hydraulic actuators, propulsions
systems, fly-by-wire systems) to the control of the
speed and attitude of the aircraft itself (autopilots,
take-off and landing systems, oscillation damping
systems).
– Software packages
like MATLAB and
SIMULINK,
and MATRIXX can
routinely simulate
the behavior of
very large and
complex control
systems including
some limited
amount of non-
linearities.
 Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
(MDO)
•The design optimization technique which is enable to consider
simultaneously various fields with mutual interaction
•Design Optimization Technology
•IT based technology
• Infrastructure of MDO Framework
•Integrated Design Technology
•Focus on the conceptual design then preliminary design
• The more development in the computing area, MDO will be able to apply
preliminary design Computer
•The objective of MDO is reduce time and cost consuming for real
engineering design
•MDO oriented computing technology
• CAD/CAM, geometric modeling, Graphic Interface, DB management, Data
transmission, parallel Computing
Consideration of MDO Problem
Analysis and Sensitivity Capability
•Challenges and Issues
• Lack of Automation of High Fidelity Codes and Sub-Optimization Processes
• Lack of Cost Models for Use in MDO
• Checking of Analysis Model and Data At Each Step
• Large Computer Run Times for High Fidelity Codes
•Needs
• Robust Automated Disciplinary Analyses Modules (Preferably
Commercial)
– CFD, FEM, Nonlinear Loads, Aeroservoelastic
– Global/Local Structural Sizing
– Efficient Aerodynamic Optimization
– Other
• Interactive Analysis Data Monitoring and Checking Tools
• Simplified and Detailed Manufacturing and Maintenance Cost and
Constraint Models
 Optimization Issues in MDO
•Single level monolithic optimization (Conventional)
•Decomposition
• Decomposed Analysis

– System level optimization

– Parallel disciplinary analysis

• Decomposed optimization

– Multi-level (system and subspace) optimization

– Parallel disciplinary analysis
•System sensitivity analysis
•Design oriented analysis, Surrogates
•Improved optimization algorithms
• Large number of design variables & constraints
• Gradient free
 Challenges in MDO Implementation
•Multidisciplinary Analysis Fields
• Well posed interfaces for disciplines
• Discipline and Multidisciplinary sensitivities
• Mathematical modeling of LC disciplines
• Automated grid generation for CFD, FEM
• Cost & run-time of high fidelity analysis
•Multidisciplinary Optimization Fields
• Problem definition
• MDO architectures
• Design Space Search