A parametric aircraft fuselage model for preliminary sizing and crashworthiness applications

Abstract

The aircraft design process generally comprises three consecutive phases: conceptual, preliminary and detailed design phase. In the conceptual design phase a basis aircraft layout is defined using multidisciplinary analysis procedures. For the structural layout, however, the preliminary design phase is of particular interest as more detailed calculations are introduced to enhance the basic design of the primary structure. 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 a multidisciplinary design environment, automated processes based on a parametric model description have been introduced. To easily couple in- and output of different tools, a standardized data format—CPACS (Common Parametric 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 on the progress of numerical process chains for structural sizing and crashworthiness applications on solid ground and on water (ditching) are presented in this paper.