Challenges for a multidisciplinry design of the future aircraft

Abstract

Current state-of-the-art aircraft are complex products. Their design combines various disciplines like aerodynamics, structures, aero-elasticity, safety, etc. Each discipline can optimise the design with respect to its own relevant objectives. However, such single discipline optimisation cannot take into account the interactions between the disciplines involved e.g. optimising on weight might in-crease production costs or reduce maintenance intervals. Multi-disciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO) intends to arrive at an optimal design at aircraft based on a chosen set of measurable de-sign criteria. However, such iteration process among these areas is nowadays a highly time con-suming iteration process. Here is a need for an improved interaction among the design tools which are coming from the different technical disciplines. One major project in that field is the finished EU project VIVACE (Value Improvement through a Virtual Aeronautical Collaborative Enterprise, www.vivaceproject.com). It brought a significant progress in the MDO of preliminary and unconven-tional design, wing, whole engine and complex subsystems. The work has resulted in the progress towards a generic framework. The work is continued in the just started follow-up project CRE-SIENCO. DLR is partner in both projects. In addition, there is an internal DLR research projects to that topic. This paper deals with main results achieved of VIVACE, objectives of CRESIENCO and selected results of DLR project.