Conceptual multidisciplinary aircraft design using aero-structural adjoint-based methods
File(s)
Author(s)
Viti, Andrea
Type
Thesis
Abstract
Nowadays, on the one hand aircraft design reached very high-fidelity level and aircraft manufacturers obtained such experience that they deeply rely on their design work-flow, models and tests. On the other hand, aircraft architecture struggles to change. Indeed, because of uncertainty and risk management reasons engineers are worried to explore new designs. Moreover, preliminary design models do not enable unconventional aircraft design. By combining the current Overall Aircraft Design models with aero-structural analysis and optimization information, this research work introduces an innovative multidisciplinary approach to be implemented in the preliminary aircraft design phase for novel configurations. The procedure was successfully tested with a forward swept wing-body architecture for which classical preliminary design method was not able to catch physical behaviours due to the wing bending-torsion coupling.
Version
Open Access
Date Issued
2019-03
Date Awarded
2019-12
Copyright Statement
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial Licence
Advisor
Hewson, Robert
Publisher Department
Aeronautics
Publisher Institution
Imperial College London
Qualification Level
Doctoral
Qualification Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)