AIRCRAFT DESIGN EXPERIENCE

Some of the author's experiences of aircraft design are described in the present report, and it is hoped that they would be of some interest to the aircraft designers.

A methodology for constructing the aircraft design schema

Aircraft collaboration design is based on a unified set of schemas containing data and model representations and interfaces across disciplines.The aircraft design schema is a central data model that specifies the paradigm for the representation of a full lifecycle model of aircraft design.The construction of the schema currently lacks theoretical guidance.This paper designs a novel methodology to construct the aircraft design schema,a fully functional,logical,and selfconsistent methodology.The methodology defines a schema matrix that includes implementation strategies,principles,processes,meta-object facility,views,scenarios,and products.The aircraft conceptual design schema is constructed according to the methodology,which is a hands-on approach to help understand the concept and implementation.The features of the methodology are analyzed,and the methodology and the aircraft conceptual design schema are presented to address the pain points of multiple solution trade-offs,multiple iterations,and multidisciplinary coupling in aircraft conceptual collaboration design.

Decomposition of Mathematical Programming Models for Aircraft Wing Design Facilitating the Use of Dynamic Programming Approach

Aircraft designers strive to achieve optimal weight-reliability tradeoffs while designing an aircraft. Since aircraft wing skins account for more than fifty percent of their structural weight, aircraft wings must be designed with utmost care and attention in terms of material types and thickness configurations. In particular, the selection of thickness at each location of the aircraft wing skin is the most consequential task for aircraft designers. To accomplish this, we present discrete mathematical programming models to obtain optimal thicknesses either to minimize weight or to maximize reliability. We present theoretical results for the decomposition of these discrete mathematical programming models to reduce computer memory requirements and facilitate the use of dynamic programming for design purposes. In particular, a decomposed version of the weight minimization problem is solved for an aircraft wing with thirty locations (or panels) and fourteen thickness choices for each location to yield an optimal minimum weight design.

Multi-objective optimization of aircraft design for emission and cost reductions

Pollutant gases emitted from the civil jet are doing more and more harm to the environ- ment with the rapid development of the global commercial aviation transport. Low environmental impact has become a new requirement for aircraft design. In this paper, estimation method for emis- sion in aircraft conceptual design stage is improved based on the International Civil Aviation Orga- nization （ICAO） aircraft engine emissions databank and the polynomial curve fitting methods. The greenhouse gas emission （CO2 equivalent） per seat per kilometer is proposed to measure the emis- sions. An approximate sensitive analysis and a multi-objective optimization of aircraft design for tradeoff between greenhouse effect and direct operating cost （DOC） are performed with five geom- etry variables of wing configuration and two flight operational parameters. The results indicate that reducing the cruise altitude and Mach number may result in a decrease of the greenhouse effect but an increase of DOC. And the two flight operational parameters have more effects on the emissions than the wing configuration. The Pareto-optimal front shows that a decrease of 29.8% in DOC is attained at the expense of an increase of 10.8% in greenhouse gases.

Maturity assessment model for aircraft collaborative design software solution

In order to assure quality and control process in the development of the aircraft collaborative design software, a maturity assessment model is proposed. The requirements designing—house of quality is designed to evaluate the maturity degree of the solution, and the evaluation results can help to manage and control the development process. Furthermore, a fuzzy evaluation method based on the minimum deviation is proposed to deal with the fuzzy information. The quantitative evaluation result of the maturity degree can be calculated by optimizing the semantic discount factor aim for the minimum deviation. Finally, this model is illustrated and analyzed by an example study of the aircraft collaborative design software.

Conceptual design and RCS performance research of shipborne early warning aircraft

In order to improve the survivability of the aircraft,conceptual design and radar cross section（RCS） performance research are done. The CATIA software is used to design the 3D digital model of the shipborne early warning aircraft, and some measures are taken to reduce the RCS characteristics of the early warning aircraft at the same time. Based on the physical optics method and the equivalent electromagnetic flow method,the aircraft＇s RCS characteristics and strength distribution characteristics are simulated numerically, and compared with the foreign advanced shipborne early warning aircraft. The simulation results show that under the X radar band, when the incident wave pitching angle is 0？, compared with the foreign advanced shipborne early warning aircraft, the forward RCS average value of the conceptual shipborne early warning aircraft is reduced to 24.49%, the lateral RCS average value is reduced to 5.04%, and the backward RCS average value is reduced to 39.26%. The research results of this paper are expected to provide theoretical basis and technical support for the conceptual design and the stealth design of the shipborne early warning aircraft.

DESIGN OBJECT MODEL AND DESIGN PROCESS MODEL OF COMPUTER AIDED AIRCRAFT CONCEPTUAL DESIGN SYSTEM

The concept and basic requirement of computer aided design, the charac-ters and requirements of computer aided aircraft conceptual design system are describedin this paper. The first thing in developing a design system is to create the models. A de-sign m

Influential Factors in Safety Design of Aircraft Pneumatic Duct System

The reliability and safety of the pneumatic ducts are essential for flight safety.A beam element model of the duct system is developed and the factors that impact the stress performance of the duct system are investigated,such as stress check standards,flight acceleration,internal temperature and internal pressure.The results show that the stress synthetic method as the stress check standard can obtain the more safety design results.The maximum stress of straight pipe is affected significantly by the acceleration in a plane perpendicular to straight pipe,while the maximum stress of bend pipe is greatly affected by the acceleration in the direction perpendicular to plane of the bend pipe.Meanwhile,internal pressure has little effect on the maximum stress of bend pipe and straight pipe.Temperature has little effect on the maximum stress of bend pipe while has a big impact on the maximum stress of straight pipe.

Research of low boom and low drag supersonic aircraft design

Sonic boom reduction will be an issue of utmost importance in future supersonic trans-port, due to strong regulations on acoustic nuisance. The paper describes a new multi-objective optimization method for supersonic aircraft design. The method is developed by coupling Seebass-George-Darden （SGD） inverse design method and multi-objective genetic algorithm. Based on the method, different codes are developed. Using a computational architecture, a concep-tual supersonic aircraft design environment （CSADE） is constructed. The architecture of CSADE includes inner optimization level and out optimization level. The low boom configuration is gener-ated in inner optimization level by matching the target equivalent area distribution and actual equivalent area distribution. And low boom/low drag configuration is generated in outer optimiza-tion level by using NSGA-II multi-objective genetic algorithm to optimize the control parameters of SGD method and aircraft shape. Two objective functions, low sonic boom and low wave drag, are considered in CSADE. Physically reasonable Pareto solutions are obtained from the present optimization. Some supersonic aircraft configurations are selected from Pareto front and the optimization results indicate that the swept forward wing configuration has benefits in both sonic boom reduction and wave drag reduction. The results are validated by using computational fluid dynamics （CFD） analysis.

A Dynamic Programming Approach to the Design of Composite Aircraft Wings

A light and reliable aircraft has been the major goal of aircraft designers. It is imperative to design the aircraft wing skins as efficiently as possible since the wing skins comprise more than fifty percent of the structural weight of the aircraft wing. The aircraft wing skin consists of many different types of material and thickness configurations at various locations. Selecting a thickness for each location is perhaps the most significant design task. In this paper, we formulate discrete mathematical programming models to determine the optimal thicknesses for three different criteria: maximize reliability, minimize weight, and achieve a trade-off between maximizing reliability and minimizing weight. These three model formulations are generalized discrete resource-allocation problems, which lend themselves well to the dynamic programming approach. Consequently, we use the dynamic programming method to solve these model formulations. To illustrate our approach, an example is solved in which dynamic programming yields a minimum weight design as well as a trade-off curve for weight versus reliability for an aircraft wing with thirty locations (or panels) and fourteen thickness choices for each location.

Application of Fuzzy QFD to Aircraft Top Hierarchy Design

In this paper, based on the Quality Function Deployment ( QFD) method, theFuzzy Quality Function Deployment (FQFD) theory and the step-by-step hierarchy structure in aircrafttop decision design are studied. The fuzzy model for computing competitive factor in evaluation ispresented. The decision of key technologies for improving the performance and affordability of afixed-wing aircraft is studied using the model, and the result proves the feasibility of this model.

REQUIREMENTS AND DESIGN METHOD FOR MATCHING AIRCRAFT GUNS WITH THEIR SUPPORTING STRUCTURE

In aircraft structural dynamic design the matching of guns with their supportingstructure is one of the most important tasks on which hinges the success or failure of thestructural design.The design curves for matching guns with their supporting structure can be obtained fromresponse calculations of the plate-spring system supporting the gun on the ground,the modelstructure tested on the ground and the actual structure.A set of matching curves is given forengineering application.Then,the matching design can be accomplished by means of impactload spectrograms so as to perform an optimal structural design and to make further improvementson dynamic design program.

APPLICATION OF HYBRID GENETIC ALGORITHM IN AEROELASTIC MULTIDISCIPLINARY DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF LARGE AIRCRAFT

The genetic/gradient-based hybrid algorithm is introduced and used in the design studies of aeroelastic optimization of large aircraft wings to attain skin distribution,stiffness distribution and design sensitivity.The program of genetic algorithm is developed by the authors while the gradient-based algorithm borrows from the modified method for feasible direction in MSC/NASTRAN software.In the hybrid algorithm,the genetic algorithm is used to perform global search to avoid to fall into local optima,and then the excellent individuals of every generation optimized by the genetic algorithm are further fine-tuned by the modified method for feasible direction to attain the local optima and hence to get global optima.Moreover,the application effects of hybrid genetic algorithm in aeroelastic multidisciplinary design optimization of large aircraft wing are discussed,which satisfy multiple constraints of strength,displacement,aileron efficiency,and flutter speed.The application results show that the genetic/gradient-based hybrid algorithm is available for aeroelastic optimization of large aircraft wings in initial design phase as well as detailed design phase,and the optimization results are very consistent.Therefore,the design modifications can be decreased using the genetic/gradient-based hybrid algorithm.

Risk Assessment of Aircraft’s Lateral Veer-off the Runway Surface during Landing

This article presents a methodology to determine the risk of aircrafts lateral runway excursion during landing via mathematical risk modeling. In addition, the methodology is demonstrated by means of detailed calculation of the lateral runway excursion risk value during the landing of the aircraft Airbus A310-200, in view of the maximum landing weight and the appropriate range of landing velocities according to the International Civil Aviation Organization specification. Obviously, the calculation demonstrates that the developed math solutions and equations presented herein are powerful tools to evaluate the risk of lateral runway excursion of the majority of aircrafts and for any airport. The method is also applicable to assess the residual level of risk at any specific airport and its deviation compared to the recommended safety level. Consequently, the presented mathematical solutions to determine the risk rate of lateral runway excursion during landing offers airports’ operational and safety management departments a viable tool so that appropriate measurements could be adopted. Finally, it is a methodology not only to assess the risk but also to determine the appropriate runway width.

OPTIMAL DESIGN AND AERODYNAMIC CALCULATION OF WING CONFIGURATION OF CIVIL AIRCRAFT

An effective method of optimal design of wing configuration is provided. The SUMT (sequential unconstained minimization technique) method is a good technique for solving the nonlinear programming. The application of penalty in optimal design of wing configuration has been solved well. The present method for the aerodynamic calculation is the combination of both the nonlinear panel method and the suction analogy method of vortexlift spanwise distribution on large swept wing-tip. The calculation results are in good agreement with experimental data. According to the computation and experiment,the mechanism of the increased lift and reduced drag about the sheared wing-tip wing has been analyzed, and some opinions of interest are proposed.

Aero-structural design of joined-wing aircraft based on high-fidelity model

The joined-wing configuration reduces induced drag and structural weight by connecting the rear wing to the front wing.In addition,the rear wing can replace the role of the horizontal tail of a conventional aircraft,thus eliminating the aerodynamic drag and weight associated with the horizontal tail.This particular shape creates a highly coupled relationship between aerodynamics and structure,which must be fully considered during the overall design process to enhance aircraft performance.In this research,an aero-structural design model of the joined-wing aircraft is constructed based on high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics and structural finite element methods.The model is able to obtain accurate aerodynamic loads for the non-planar wing and to simulate the statically indeterminate structure of the closed wing configuration.The influence of the joined-wing shape parameters on the aerodynamic and structural disciplines,as well as the influence of geometric nonlinear characteristics,deformation constraints and buckling constraints on the structural weight are all taken into consideration.The model is applied to complete the aero-structural design optimization of a high-altitude long-endurance joined-wing aircraft,and wind tunnel tests are conducted.The test results verify the credibility of the design model proposed and the validity of the design environment.

混合动力推进系统与飞机数字化设计现状与展望

本文总结了国内外针对混合动力推进系统及飞机发展专门开发的数字化设计工具,归纳了其相应设计方法及特点。综合来看,为了满足混合动力飞机的设计需求,集成高精度电系统和热能管理系统模型,建立针对性的性能评估体系、飞机与发动机设计的数据耦合交互、研究设计与安全性分析相统一的建模方法、基于人工智能方法提高优化设计管理能力是目前面向其特点的关键发展方向,并为其后续的实验验证、适航条例制定等工程应用提供重要的技术支撑和设计依据。

基于DIALux的飞机客舱照明设计方法

飞机客舱照明是飞机内部照明系统的重要组成部分,合理的客舱照明设计可以提高飞行服务质量、提升旅客满意度和舒适度。基于DIALux计算仿真软件,提出了一种飞机客舱照明设计方法。从旅行安全、视觉舒适度、高品质服务等角度出发,通过对平均照度、眩光、照度均匀度等多方面的量化评估、校核与分析,探讨并提出了具有创新性的飞机客舱的照明设计方法。基于此方法以某型号飞机客舱为研究对象建立光学仿真模型、进行视觉仿真计算,验证了该方法的可行性。