Abstract
Class/shape transformation (CST) method has advantages of adjustable design variables and powerful parametric geometric shape design ability and has been widely used in aerodynamic design and optimization processes. Three-dimensional CST is an extension for complex aircraft and can generate diverse three-dimensional aircraft and the corresponding mesh automatically and quickly. This paper proposes a parametric structural modeling method based on gridding feature extraction from the aerodynamic mesh generated by the three-dimensional CST method. This novel method can create parametric structural model for fuselage and wing and keep the coordination between the aerodynamic mesh and the structural mesh. Based on the generated aerodynamic model and structural model, an automatic process for aeroelastic modeling and solving is presented with the panel method for aerodynamic solver and NASTRAN for structural solver. A reusable launch vehicle (RLV) is used to illustrate the process for aeroelastic modeling and solving. The result shows that this method can generate aeroelastic model for diverse complex three-dimensional aircraft automatically and reduce the difficulty of aeroelastic analysis dramatically. It provides an effective approach to make use of the aeroelastic analysis at the conceptual design phase for modern aircraft.
Highlights
In the wake of requirements for high lift-drag ratio aerodynamic shape and light-weight structure, the aeroelastic phenomena caused by interaction between fluid and structure have a growing influence on the integrated performance of modern aircraft [1, 2]
Aeroelastic analysis is given attention by lots of researchers [5]. Many tools such as ZAERO [6], ENSAERO [7], and NeoCASS [8] are developed to perform aeroelastic analysis based on the frequency domain analysis method and time domain analysis method and have been widely applied on high aspect ratio wing, unmanned aerial vehicle, and hypersonic aircraft
Aeroelastic analysis applied in the conceptual design phase faces the following problems: (1) The aerodynamic model and structural model established in many aeroelastic literatures were complicated; the sizing of the aerodynamic shape and structural layout is difficult and time-consuming, which makes it hard to meet the demand for rapid modification at the conceptual design phase
Summary
In the wake of requirements for high lift-drag ratio aerodynamic shape and light-weight structure, the aeroelastic phenomena caused by interaction between fluid and structure have a growing influence on the integrated performance of modern aircraft [1, 2]. (1) The aerodynamic model and structural model established in many aeroelastic literatures were complicated; the sizing of the aerodynamic shape and structural layout is difficult and time-consuming, which makes it hard to meet the demand for rapid modification at the conceptual design phase. The authors in [20, 21] proposed a universal threedimensional CST method for geometry modeling of complex aircraft It generates complex three-dimensional geometric shape to support various aircraft aerodynamic shape modeling, which gives a simple and effective way to aerodynamic optimization. This novel three-dimensional CST method is extended in aeroelastic analysis of complex aircraft in this article. The basic principle of the three-dimensional CST method is introduced briefly; the aircraft characteristic components library is established, including fuselage, wing, and empennage; on this basis, the structural modeling method is presented in detail, and the aeroelastic modeling and analysis process is constructed; a static aeroelastic analysis example is used to verify the proposed aeroelastic modeling and analysis process
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