Numerical Optimization applied to structure sizing at AIRBUS: A multi-step process

Abstract

-Structure optimization at airframe level is mainly focused on sizing design variables detailing the thin-walled properties of aircraft structures. Typical design variables are cross sectional dimensions for 1D and 2D elements with an additional complexity brought by composite materials with their directional and multi-layer aspects. Even if the scope of these design variables is clear and well understood, the vision of the structure behaviour is multi-criteria and encompasses various fidelity levels. Its design requires several stages from the future project to the detailed definition of structural parts using various analysis tools from different disciplines. These several stages require adequate structural optimization processes to offer the best response with the right level of details to answer questions being sought at each maturity level of the design. A review of methods & tools developed and applied at AIRBUS to deliver automated sizing for aircraft structures along their development will be presented. Ways forward and major stakes for the future will be discussed.

Neural network computation for the evaluation of process rendering: application to thermally sprayed coatings

“…A structure was optimized after 1000 cycles and revealed two hidden layers containing 10 neurons in the first one and five neurons in the second one. For a detailed description about neural computation, see for example [10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

Challenges of additive manufacturing technologies from an optimisation perspective

“…The classical scheme (Figure 5a) does not handle the defects induced by processing, which makes any deviation from the optimal virtual design a cause of failure. Numerical sizing in aerospace applications [128] is a typical example where such defects can be an issue to validate the final design in airframe development. In the second scheme (Figure 5b), the corrections introduced by the monitoring of the defects helps in guiding the optimisation tool towards the best realistic solution.…”

Efficient optimisation of large aircraft fuselage structures

“…On the design methods side, fast and accurate design analyses and optimisation methods are a prerequisite to identify the most beneficial design options and to achieve optimised local sizing of structural components. But the design of large structures like aircraft fuselages requires a variety of tools and methods, including computationally expensive analyses, to accurately assess the typical failure modes for weight optimised design, like local buckling (2) . Therefore the design of such structures is usually performed by analyses and optimisations on different levels (e.g.…”

“…3): relatively simple analyses and optimisations on the global fuselage barrel level and more detailed analyses and optimisations on the local level of a single stiffened skin bay (2) . The aim of the study behind this paper is to develop new design methods for computationally efficient optimisation of aircraft fuselage structures.…”

“…Aircraft level optimisation of fuselage structures considers global level analyses of the fuselage structure while focusing on the sizing of local structural design variables that represent the thin-wall properties of the structure, like skin thicknesses and stringer dimensions (2) . The global analyses typically use (coarse) finite element (FE) models (e.g.…”