Structural wing optimisation targeting economical mission performance of a passenger aircraft

Abstract

In an aircraft design, optimisation has become a common practice, especially when structural and aerodynamics interactions are considered. Performance measures often used in an industrial setting include structural weight, drag, lift to drag ratio, fuel burn or maximum range. It is a common practice to evaluate such performance indicators only on a handful of sample points. To achieve a truly economical aircraft design it is necessary to include a fully integrated mission analysis during a multidisciplinary structural optimisation, as there is a strong coupling between a flight behaviour and actual operational conditions of an aircraft. This paper makes a case for a modular approach to a mission analysis implementation that could utilise a variety of physical models and their combinations, offsetting some of the computational demands related to a fully integrated mission analysis and allowing to focus resources where they are needed.