Aeroelastic Design and Optimization of Unconventional Aircraft Configurations in a Distributed Design Environment

A Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization (MDO) methodology is presented, which uses a physics-based modeling approach for the preliminary structural design of unconventional aircraft configurations. Therein, static as well as dynamic aeroelastic stability constraints are accounted for at the early stage of the design process. A functional parametrization is applied for the description of the aircraft’s geometry. Several physics based analysis modules are orchestrated by an engineering framework to enable distributed multidisciplinary analysis and optimization. The method builds on DLR’s collaborative design environment, which uses the central data model CPACS to provide consistent model information in the analysis workflow. A knowledge based aeroelastic engine is developed to accelerate the integration of the disciplinary models and the subsequent aeroelastic analysis, and to automate the disciplinary couplings. The approach is tested in optimization test cases for a conventional wing design as well as for a Blended Wing Body configuration.

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