A Parametrical Transport Aircraft Fuselage Model for Preliminary Sizing and Beyond

Abstract

Aircraft design generally comprises three consecutive phases: Conceptual, preliminary and detailed design phase. The preliminary design phase is of particular interest as the basic layout of the primary structure is defined. Up to date, semi-analytical methods are widely used in this design stage to estimate the structural mass. Although these methods lead to adequate results for the major aircraft components of standard configurations, the evaluation of new configurations (e.g. box wing, blended wing body) or specific structural components with complex loading conditions (e.g. center wing box) is very challenging and demands higher fidelity approaches based on Finite Elements (FE). To accelerate FE model generation in multi-disciplinary design approaches, automated processes have been introduced. In order to easily couple different tools, a standardized data format - CPACS (Common Parameterized Aircraft Configuration Schema) - is used. The versatile structural description in CPACS, the implementation in model generation tools but also current limitations and future enhancements will be discussed. Recent development in the progress of numerical process chains for structural sizing but also for further applications including crash on solid ground and ditching (emergency landing on water) are presented in this paper.