Comparative analysis of new configurations of aircraft aimed at competitiveness, environmental compatibility and safety

Abstract

This Ph.D. Thesis aims at suggesting a proper integrated and multidisciplinary design methodology to improve the current conceptual and preliminary design phases of breakthrough innovative aerospace products. The methodology, based on a Systems Engineering approach, is presented together with an envisaged toolchain, consisting of both commercial and ad-hoc developed software, integrated in a Model-Based Systems Engineering perspective. In addition, for the sake of clarity and for validation purposes, a specific case study has been selected and developed all along the document. The reference case-study is inspired to a real pre-feasibility study in which the research group of Politecnico di Torino, which the author of this Thesis belongs to, has been involved. The project aims at developing a suborbital vehicle able to perform parabolic flights for both scientific and touristic purposes. This kind of initiatives paves the way for the future hypersonic vehicles, because it allows to crucial enabling technologies to be tested and validated in relevant environment but with lower performances' requirements. The Thesis is articulated in seven Chapters with an introduction and conclusion sections and in each Chapter a balanced mix between theoretical investigation, mathematical model development, tool selection or development and application to the selected case study is guaranteed. This document starts reporting the major reasons why an innovative design methodology should be envisaged to deal with the increasing level of complexity in the aerospace domain. In particular, in the first Chapter, a brief overview of existing or underdevelopment initiatives related to hypersonic is reported, together with the description of the different types of mission in which the new hypersonic vehicles will be exploited. Moreover, the major issues related to the infrastructures required to operate these transportation systems are summarized. As far as operations are concerned, a short section makes the readers aware of the current under-development regulatory framework. Then, the integrated multidisciplinary design methodology is presented starting from the very high level analyses up to the sizing of the different components of the transportation system. All along the document, crucial role is played by requirements, whose management can allow a complete traceability of the different design characteristics during the overall product life-cycle. Furthermore, proper algorithms allowing to move from purely qualitative to quantitative trade-offs, are presented, with a noticeable advantage in terms of traceability and reproducibility. Eventually, further improvements of both the tool-chain and the reference case studies are envisaged for future developments.