Quasi-Three-Dimensional Aerodynamic Solver for Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Lifting Surfaces

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a quasi-three-dimensional aerodynamic solver, which provides accurate results for wing drag comparable to the higher-fidelity aerodynamic solvers at significantly lower computational costs. The proposed solver calculates the viscous wing drag using the combination of a two-dimensional airfoil analysis tool with a vortex lattice code. Validation results show that the results of the quasi-three-dimensional solver are in good agreement with higher-fidelity computational fluid dynamics solvers. The quasi-three-dimensional solver is used for a wing shape multidisciplinary design optimization. A multidisciplinary design optimization problem is formulated to design the wing shape of a typical passenger aircraft. The aircraft maximum takeoff weight is considered as the objective function. Two optimization algorithms, a local and a global optimum finder, are implemented in the multidisciplinary design optimization system. The optimization results indicate that the global optimization algorithm shows a slightly greater reduction in maximum takeoff weight. However, finding the global optimum needs about 20 times the computational time of the local optimization algorithm.