Introducing welding manufacturability in a multidisciplinary platform for the evaluation of conceptual aircraft engine components

Abstract

Computer simulations play an important role for evaluating designs in an early stages leading to that more informed decisions can be taken and thereby reducing the risk of costly re-design. In this paper, a platform currently in operation at an aeronautical company for doing extensive automated multi-objective design parameter studies on conceptual designs of aircraft engine components is studied. In the paper, an extension of the capability of the platform into making a rule-based evaluation of the welding manufacturability of the conceptual designs is proposed. The extension is tested by a prototype system at the air-craft manufacturer showing the relation between the design parameters and the manufacturability of the components. The results are presented as a manufacturability index showing what trade-offs with other performance criteria of the engine that can be made. It is shown that the manufacturability evaluation can be integrated in the knowledge value stream and supports a set-based concurrent engineering approach in the company.