Process, methods and tools for flexible aircraft flight dynamics model integration

Abstract

Multi-disciplinary flight dynamics models for rigid and flexible aircraft are used in various areas and stages of the aircraft design process, like for example flight loads analysis and flight control law design. These models must be sufficiently accurate, but also allow for thousands of simulations in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. ’loop-capable’). Depending on the application, flight dynamics models need to be available in various forms, like ODEs for nonlinear simulation, linear state space models for control analysis, etc. A major challenge in development of multi-disciplinary flight dynamics models is the handling and integration of data from various sources, removing overlaps, and filling in gaps in case specific data is missing. During the last decade, the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics has developed methods and tools for these tasks, as well as for model implementation in various forms suitable for aircraft design analysis. Recently, these aspects have been integrated in a standardized efficient model integration process, called DAMIP (DLR Aircraft Model Integration Process). DAMIP uses the data structure of VarLoads, which is developed in cooperation with Airbus, and is backed by appropriate methods and tools. In this paper an overview of DAMIP will be given, as well as some recent application examples.