Virtual Aircraft Technology Integration Platform - Results of DLR's Project VicToria

Kurzfassung

The development, testing and production of new aircraft and helicopters are associated with considerable temporal and financial risks due to the product and manufacturing complexity. In order to accelerate the introduction of innovative technologies for more economical, more environmentally friendly and safer air vehicles and to better control the technological risks involved, DLR's guiding concept 'The Virtual Product' aims at virtualizing the design, development and manufacturing processes, including the definition of an appropriate validation strategy. The foundations for the complete digital development and description of aircraft and helicopters are being laid by DLR in its collaborative research project VicToria (Virtual Aircraft Technology Integration Platform), which began on 1 July 2016 and will end on 31 December 2019. Victoria was a follow up to DLR's successful Digital-X project, where the first steps were taken towards virtual aircraft design and flight testing based on high-fidelity methods. A total of 13 DLR institutes and facilities participated in the project. The project team involved more than 150 scientist and engineers. The project made a contribution with respect to improved physical modelling, improved numerical and experimental methods, verification and validation with dedicated flight and wind-tunnel tests, and high-fidelity multidisciplinary simulation and optimization of aircraft and helicopters on high-performance computers. Virtual and real flight tests were conducted to create a virtual aircraft model for DLR's A320 research aircraft, including the design of a flight controller for load reduction. The team also contributed to the development of a comprehensive simulation, design and optimization environment for virtual helicopters. The virtual aircraft and helicopter models were also used to feed DLR's own flight simulator AVES to evaluate the virtual product by test pilots long before the actual product is being built. Based on this Virtual Aircraft Technology Integration Platform and the complete digital representation of the product with all its functionalities and characteristics, it will be possible to assess the potential of new technologies in a virtual design environment by performing trade studies and to estimate the impact of new technologies in terms of, for example, weight, fuel burn or environmental impact.