A New Approach to Comprehensive Rotorcraft Aeromechanics Simulation

Abstract

A new comprehensive aeromechanics code for rotary wing aircraft is being developed at the German Aerospace Center. It follows a new and very general approach in modeling all physical subsystems and numerical methods in one common interface description. The structure of the code makes no assumptions about the system to be modeled and builds the global system strictly from the logical connections of the sub-models. It relies heavily on modern language features and programming techniques like algorithmic differentiation. This paper describes the novel approach and currently implemented features. While verification and validation are a part of the paper it is not the sole purpose. The calculations serve rather as a means of verifying the general approach and its fitness for the long-term vision of the code. The description of the architectural concept is the main purpose of this paper. The description and evaluation is being underlined with a set of verification and preliminary validation cases.