A Knowledge Based Engineering Approach to Support Automatic Generation of FE Models in Aircraft Design

Abstract

Multidisciplinary Design and Optimisation (MDO) is acknowledged as the design methodology with the largest potential for helping aircraft industry pushing further the limits of current design. Nevertheless, large part of this potential is at date still unexploited. The difficulties associated with the management of the design process across distributed teams of specialists and the use High Fidelity analysis tools early in the design process have been indicated by the MDO community as two of the most relevant points of attention. The designer’ wish of evaluating many design configurations, including creative and innovative design solutions have been always frustrated by the huge amount of work required to set up the dedicated models required by the various analysis tools, such as FE and CFD. The lack of flexibility and robustness typical of current CAD systems and analysis tools has been the main obstacle to the full automation of the design verification process. In this paper, the use of Knowledge Based Engineering is proposed as an innovative approach to support designers both during the creative part of the design process and the design verification phase using High fidelity analysis tools. The development of a modular computational design framework, addressed as Design and Engineering Engine, is introduced here. In particular, the functionalities of the aircraft parametric modeling module (the Multi Model Generator) are discussed in this paper and it is shown how the implemented approach makes possible to automate the generation of suitable models for FE analysis.