Steps to Feasibility for Laminar Wing Design in a Multidisciplinary Environment

Abstract

Within an automated multidisciplinary framework involving aerodynamics and structural mechanics, a structural design process is built that leads to a composite wing enabling natural laminar flow (NLF). At earlier investigations a simplified approach to represent the structural design concept was used to obtain fast results. On the other hand realistic wing designs are much more complex. In order to obtain more realistic results in aircraft pre-design the influence of various fidelity levels of structural sizing are investigated on a forward swept wing and the results are compared regarding wing mass and stiffness.