Development of a Software Architecture for a Reconfigurable Aircraft Design System

Aircraft design systems are frequently used to synthesize aircraft designs. However, it is inherently difficult to reconfigure these software systems to facilitate a broader range of design studies (e.g. optimization or sensitivity studies) and to address follow-up questions about the synthesized aircraft designs. This report presents an...

Design and Noise Acceptability of Future Supersonic Transport Aircraft

Because of the expected return of civil supersonic flight, research is required to update supersonic noise regulations to allow public acceptance of civil supersonic flights. To advise ICAO on whether future supersonic aircraft will be able to comply with current regulations this thesis predicts the noise production of future supersonic...

Aircraft Interior Systems for the Future Onboard Services in the Flying-V

The Flying-V is a unique concept aircraft to fly more energy efficient. With the V-shape passenger cabin integrated in its wings, a new interior is created with four different seat concepts. This raises the question of how the onboard services could be designed for the Flying-V. As a matter of fact, food plays an influencing role on the overall...

Design Guidelines for Gust Load Inclusion in Aeroelastic Optimization of a Civil Aircraft in the Preliminary Design Phase

Fundamental phase in the preliminary design of an aircraft is the load case choice. Historically, the manoeuvres have been considered as the principal critical loads, while in conceptual design the gusts have been not investigated since, being an intrinsically dynamic phenomenon, they are expensive to analyze. Nevertheless, they are a critical...

Assessment of Conceptual High-Capacity Regional Turbopropeller Aircraft

Designers are motivated to create more a efficient aircraft design following the growth of the market and environmental restrictions. As a result new interest in propeller-powered aircraft as such engines show higher theoretical propulsive efficiency as compared to turbofan engines. <br/><br/>The employment of turboprop engines on commercial...

Wing Optimization with Active Load Control: Integrating Maneuver Load Control and Gust Load Alleviation in Wing Structural Optimization of Large Transport Aircraft

Improving the performance of large transport aircraft requires high aspect ratio and lightweight wings, making aeroelasticity an important factor in wing structural design. Active control of aeroelastic loads can be used to improve the aeroelastic behavior of the wing.<br/><br/>Two active load control techniques are considered: Maneuver Load...

Synthesis of an Aircraft Featuring a Ducted-Fan Propulsive Empennage

A study is done to investigate the feasibility of the conceptual design of the Delft University Unconventional Configuration (DUUC), an aircraft featuring a ducted-fan propulsive empennage. This research is focused on ducted-fan performance analysis and aircraft longitudinal static stability and balance estimation. The aircraft design Initiator...

Modelling the Propeller Slipstream Effect on the Longitudinal Stability and Control

As the aviation industry continues to strive for improvements in fuel efficiency throughout the entire aircraft design, interest has been renewed in propeller engines. New research into advanced turboprop engines, so-called open rotor engines, seems promising as they combine the inherent high propulsive efficiency of ordinary turboprop engines,...

Accelerating aircraft design using automated process generation: An experimental architecture for aircraft design software

The aircraft industry has seen many evolutionary changes in the past decades. Since the Boeing 707 however, the general shape and configuration of transport aircraft have remained similar and so has the aircraft design process. Since the aviation community is about to face a revolutionary breakthrough featuring new aircraft concepts like blended...

A methodological approach for optimisation of product development processes by application of design automation

In the past decades a clear transition can be seen from fully human-based production techniques towards more automated systems. With the Product Development Process (PDP) being a potential source of competitive advantage the same trend of adopting more automation can be seen in the PDP. The application of automation can lead to large reductions...

Optimization strategy for conceptual airplane design

Due to the ever growing demand for more efficient aircraft novel aircraft concepts have to be explored. By improving design tools the potential of unconventional configurations can be further studied. This requires improvement of conceptual design tools such that more knowledge can be gathered on alternative solutions as early in the design...

Landing gear design in an automated design environment

The design of the landing gear is one of the prime aspects of aircraft design. Literature describes the design process thoroughly, however the integration of these design methods within an automated design framework has had little focus in literature. Landing gear design includes different engineering disciplines including structures, weights,...

Synthesis of Novel Aircraft Concepts for Future Air Travel

In the last 60 years many new technologies have entered the aerospace industry, but the overall aircraft design remained virtually unchanged. If we compare an aircraft built in the 1960's with the latest generation, they look strikingly similar. Only small evolutionary changes entered the commercial aircraft market. A lot of these changes are...

A Semi-Analytical Weight Estimation Method for Oval Fuselages in Novel Aircraft Configurations

Research in aircraft design is focusing on novel aircraft configurations in search for a step change in terms of overall transport efficiency. Aircraft design relies heavily on empirical methods, so-called Class 2 methods, to evaluate the performance of a design. Since these methods are based on statistical data their validity is limited when...

Aircraft Fuselage Design Study: Parametric Modeling, Structural Analysis, Material Evaluation and Optimization for Aircraft Fuselage

The strong search for lightweight materials has become a trend in the aerospace industry. Aircraft manufacturers are responding to this trend and new aerospace materials are introduced to build lighter aircrafts. However material manufacturers, like Tata Steel, are unfamiliar with the determination of running loads and the behavior of materials...