Structural Design Synthesis of Aircraft Engine Pylons at Certification Level of Detail

Abstract

Structural optimization technology, as advanced as it has become, is still not used to fully automate the design of airframe components at a level of analysis detail that would be acceptable for certification by regulatory agencies. It is part of the development of certifiable structures but is still just a part, requiring significant manual labor invested by stress engineers working with empirical and semi-empirical methods for detail analysis periodically along the design path. The Paper presents an attempt to apply an integrated model-based systems engineering philosophy, fully automated, to the process of designing and certifying aircraft structures with a level of detail and scope of modeling that would meet certification requirements. The Paper presents comparisons, not available until now, between the cost and time required by current design methods practiced in industry and required for certification and by an integrated model-based design method in the case of a particular and important aerospace structural system: the engine pylon. Weight and the development costs of the resulting designs are compared. It allows for the first time an examination of the benefits of product weight performance of the integrated model-based approach as well as engineering effort in a highly realistic certification-driven structural design case. The Paper also describes technical modeling and design automation innovations required to build the practical certification level integrated design optimization platform used here.