NeoCASS: An integrated tool for structural sizing, aeroelastic analysis and MDO at conceptual design level

This paper presents a design framework called NeoCASS (Next generation Conceptual Aero-Structural Sizing Suite), developed at the Department of Aerospace Engineering of Politecnico di Milano in the frame of SimSAC (Simulating Aircraft Stability And Control Characteristics for Use in Conceptual Design) project, funded by EU in the context of 6th Framework Program. It enables the creation of efficient low-order, medium fidelity models particularly suitable for structural sizing, aeroelastic analysis and optimization at the conceptual design level.The whole methodology is based on the integration of geometry construction, aerodynamic and structural analysis codes that combine depictive, computational, analytical, and semi-empirical methods, validated in an aircraft design environment.The work here presented aims at including the airframe and its effect from the very beginning of the conceptual design. This aspect is usually not considered in this early phase. In most cases, very simplified formulas and datasheets are adopted, which implies a low level of detail and a poor accuracy. Through NeoCASS, a preliminar distribution of stiffness and inertias can be determined, given the initial layout. The adoption of empirical formulas is reduced to the minimum in favor of simple numerical methods. This allows to consider the aeroelastic behavior and performances, as well, improving the accuracy of the design tools during the iterative steps and lowering the development costs and reducing the time to market.The result achieved is a design tool based on computational methods for the aero-structural analysis and Multi-Disciplinary Optimization (MDO) of aircraft layouts at the conceptual design stage. A complete case study regarding the TransoniCRuiser aircraft, including validation of the results obtained using industrial standard tools like MSC/NASTRAN and a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) code, is reported. As it will be shown, it is possible to improve the degree of fidelity of the conceptual design process by including tailored numerical tools, overcoming the lacks of statistical methods. The result is a method minimally dependent on datasheets, featuring a good compromise between accuracy and costs.     

Study of a Coronal Mass Ejection with SOHO/UVCS and STEREO data

We study the 3-D kinematics of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) using data acquired by the LASCO C2 and UVCS instruments on board SOHO, and the COR1 coronagraphs and EUVI telescopes on board STEREO. The event, which occurred on May 20, 2007, was a partial-halo CME associated with a prominence eruption. This is the first CME studied with UVCS data that occurred in the STEREO era. The longitudinal angle between the STEREO spacecrafts was ∼7.7° at that time, and this allowed us to reconstruct via triangulation technique the 3-D trajectory of the erupting prominence observed by STEREO/EUVI. Information on the 3-D expansion of the CME provided by STEREO/COR1 data have been combined with spectroscopic observations by SOHO/UVCS. First results presented here show that line-of-sight velocities derived from spectroscopic data are not fully in agreement with those previously derived via triangulation technique, thus pointing out possible limitations of this technique.     

Validation of numerical prediction of dynamic derivatives: The DLR-F12 and the Transcruiser test cases

The dynamic derivatives are widely used in linear aerodynamic models in order to determine the flying qualities of an aircraft: the ability to predict them reliably, quickly and sufficiently early in the design process is vital in order to avoid late and costly component redesigns. This paper describes experimental and computational research dealing with the determination of dynamic derivatives carried out within the FP6 European project SimSAC. Numerical and experimental results are compared for two aircraft configurations: a generic civil transport aircraft, wing-fuselage-tail configuration called the DLR-F12 and a generic Transonic CRuiser, which is a canard configuration. Static and dynamic wind tunnel tests have been carried out for both configurations and are briefly described within this paper. The data generated for both the DLR-F12 and TCR configurations include force and pressure coefficients obtained during small amplitude pitch, roll and yaw oscillations while the data for the TCR configuration also include large amplitude oscillations, in order to investigate the dynamic effects on nonlinear aerodynamic characteristics. In addition, dynamic derivatives have been determined for both configurations with a large panel of tools, from linear aerodynamic (Vortex Lattice Methods) to CFD. This work confirms that an increase in fidelity level enables the dynamic derivatives to be calculated more accurately. Linear aerodynamics tools are shown to give satisfactory results but are very sensitive to the geometry/mesh input data. Although all the quasi-steady CFD approaches give comparable results (robustness) for steady dynamic derivatives, they do not allow the prediction of unsteady components for the dynamic derivatives (angular derivatives with respect to time): this can be done with either a fully unsteady approach i.e. with a time-marching scheme or with frequency domain solvers, both of which provide comparable results for the DLR-F12 test case. As far as the canard configuration is concerned, strong limitations for the linear aerodynamic tools are observed. A key aspect of this work are the acceleration techniques developed for CFD methods, which allow the computational time to be dramatically reduced while providing comparable results.