Rethinking the aircraft design process using a cabin-centric development approach

Abstract

The design of passenger aircraft is inevitably linked to the design of the cabin. However, the cabin design typically takes place late in the aircraft development process. Therefore, it is subject to constraints from earlier design phases and the integration of new cabin systems and technologies is impeded. To enhance innovations among cabin design and passenger experience, a cabin-centric design approach is proposed, which makes cabin design a starting point of the overall aircraft design process. This study explores how the combination of knowledge-based engineering (KBE) and parametric-associative modeling can support cabin-centric aircraft design workflows. An extensible workflow was developed, which allows to generate fuselage geometry models based on novel 3D cabin designs.