Multidisciplinary Optimization Process for the Conceptual Design of Landing Gears for Blended Wing Body Configurations

Kurzfassung

New aircraft configurations like the blended wing-body (BWB) are expected to improve the performance and economic efficiency of the future air transport. However, new challenges also arise requiring new processes in the design which are not available from conventional aircraft. Landing gear design which involves the analysis of complex dynamical systems and also encompasses many engineering disciplines such as structural mechanics and weights is one of these challenges. In this paper the first step of an attempt to develop an optimization process in order to find the optimum BWB landing gear design is presented. The process is implemented in the beginning of the configuration or conceptual phase of the design. This allows the search for a configuration with a better potential for the optimum design which, in the end, will results in a better overall design. The interesting aspect of the process is the integration of Multibody Simulation (MBS) tools for the analysis of the structural dynamic behavior during the optimization. Such a simulation approach delivers information which cannot be obtained from simpler methods used for conventional aircraft. In this paper two different main landing gear configuration concepts are analyzed and optimized. The MBS modeling of the two concepts is shown. The integration of the MBS into the optimization process is presented. Finally the results of the optimization are presented and discussed. While this paper shows the first step of an attempt to establish such a new design process, its purpose is to establish a useful foundation for further study and it can also be regarded as a work-in-progress paper for future investigations.