Geometry and structural modeling for high-fidelity aircraft conceptual design optimization

High-fidelity computational design tools have advanced considerably in the last few decades, but there are still bottlenecks that suppress their impact in conceptual design. This paper aims to address some of these bottlenecks through a parametric geometry modeler for unconventional configurations with an efficient derivative computation and a parametric structural modeler that automatically generates full finite element meshes. As a demonstration, lift-constrained drag minimization of a truss-braced wing design is performed with respect to 532 design variables and 951 constraints with the Euler equations solved on a 1.42 million cell mesh.

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