The Shape Parametrisation of an Aircraft Engine Nacelle and Pylon

The PDE Method generates a surface patch using a boundary-value approach. We describe how complicated surface shapes may be constructed by joining together a collection of PDE patches, either by joining adjacent patches at mutual boundaries or else by cutting a ‘hole’ in an existing surface, removing the patch of the surface which lies inside the hole, and using boundary conditions imposed at the edges of the hole to generate a second surface which meets the first at the hole boundaries. The particular object we use to illustrate the technique is an aircraft engine nacelle and pylon.