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This paper discusses structure and functionalities of a knowledge-based engineering (KBE) application, called multimodel generator (MMG), developed to support aircraft multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization. Designers can use the MMG as an advanced modelling tool to swiftly generate geometrical models of many and diverse aircraft configurations and variants, by combining and adjusting a limited number of parametric objects, called high-level primitives. Besides capturing the geometric aspects of the design, the MMG also has the capabilities to automate a large part of the lengthy and non-creative pre-processing activities involved in the design verification process. The proposed KBE application has demonstrated to be a valuable solution for some of the critical needs indicated by the multidisciplinary design and optimization community, namely a flexible and robust generative tool to increase the level of automation in aircraft design, including the development of novel configurations; the exploitation of high-fidelity analytical tools already in the early design phase; the management of the design activities across distributed networks of disciplines specialists.

This paper presents a method for wing aerostruc-tural analysis and optimization, which needs much lower computational costs, while computes the wing drag and structural deformation with a level of accuracy comparable to the higher fidelity CFD and FEM tools. A quasi-three-dimensional aerodynamic solver is developed and connected to a finite beam element model for wing aerostruc-tural optimization. In a quasi-three-dimensional approach an inviscid incompressible vortex lattice method is coupled with a viscous compressible airfoil analysis code for drag prediction of a three dimensional wing. The accuracy of the proposed method for wing drag prediction is validated by comparing its results with the results of a higher fidelity CFD analysis. The wing structural deformation as well as the stress distribution in the wingbox structure is computed using a finite beam element model. The Newton method is used to solve the coupled system. The sensitivities of the outputs, for example the wing drag, with respect to the inputs, for example the wing geometry, is computed by a Ali Elham a.elham@tudelft.nl Michel J. L. van Tooren combined use of the coupled adjoint method, automatic differentiation and the chain rule of differentiation. A gradient based optimization is performed using the proposed tool for minimizing the fuel weight of an A320 class aircraft. The optimization resulted in more than 10 % reduction in the aircraft fuel weight by optimizing the wing planform and airfoils shape as well as the wing internal structure.