Disciplinary Sub-Processes to Assess Low-Speed Performance and Noise Characteristics within an Aircraft Design Environment

Abstract

The overall aircraft assessment is based on a wide range of disciplinary methodologies. In addition, a consistent aircraft design must be provided for the beginning of the aircraft design process. For this purpose, the DLR in-house conceptual aircraft design tool openAD has been developed for initialization and subsequent synthesis of results with higher fidelity. Within the aircraft design process, three disciplinary methods are introduced to improve the quality and accuracy of the performed design studies. These methods include engine performance, low speed performance and acoustics characteristics of an aircraft, which allows the predictions of the aircraft performance and noise level during the take-off and landing phase. The engine performance calculation is based on a thermodynamic cycle model and is an extension in openAD. Subsequently, the aircraft and engine performance are fed into the low speed performance tool LSperfo, which estimates the take-off and landing trajectory including the thrust requirements, flight path and aerodynamic forces. The aircraft and engine data are further passed to a noise tool, which predicts the aircraft model noise emission at relevant aircraft certification points. To demonstrate the result validity of the aircraft design environment and its disciplinary tools, a DLR interpretation of a turboprop engine aircraft (ATR 72 similar) is used. Since the tools are based on simple physical models, a proper calibration on appropriate reference aircraft needs be ensured for most overall aircraft design studies. Nevertheless, the results show a good estimation for take-off and landing field length as well as the noise level of the reference cases provided in this paper.