The Role of Aeroelasticity in Recent German and European Aircraft Research and Development

Abstract

The increasing performance requirements and the economical pressure to reduce Direct Operational Costs (DOC) of new aircraft designs can no longer be met by applying tradional sequential design methods. This holds especially true when considering aeroelasticity. The impact of its effects on the design of new high-performance transport of fighter aircraft demands the use of multidisciplinary design concepts and optimization strategies even in the preliminary phase. In Germany, a multidisciplinary research program focused on the development of key-enabling technologies for the so-called lead concept Megaliner was initiated as an innovative cooperation between the industry, research establishments, and universities. In this paper, aeroelastic design principles for the passive airframe and for actively controlled advanced aircraft with highly sophisticated fly-by-wire flight control systems are presented. The challenging problems in aeroelasticity are pointed out and the impetus of major disciplines in the development of advanced computational simulation is highlighted. The focus is primarily on the transonic regime and on the study of related nonlinear effects.