The Delft University of Technology is developing an MDO tool for the conceptual design of transport aircraft. However, the current program is not able to investigate the influence of the undercarriage design on the weight, drag and geometry of transport aircraft. This research proposes a new design method for the undercarriage, for which a new design module is created and integrated
into the Initiator architecture. This new method will allow the user to investigate the influence of the undercarriage design on the weight, drag and geometry transport aircraft concept.
By designing the undercarriage for six existing aircraft, it is shown that the updated Initiator is able to reliably and consistently design an undercarriage for a given transport aircraft concept. Also, two test cases demonstrate that the new method allows the user to evaluate the impact of the undercarriage on the drag, weight and geometry of the concept.