Wing Structural Model for Overall Aircraft Design of Distributed Electric Propulsion General Aviation and Regional Aircraft

Abstract

In the context of reducing the environmental footprint of tomorrow’s aviation, Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) has become an increasingly interesting concept. With the strong coupling between disciplines that this technology brings forth, multiple benefits are expected for the overall aircraft design. These interests have been observed not only in the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft but also in the structural design. However, current statistical models used in conceptual design have shown limitations regarding the benefits and challenges coming from these new design trends. As for other methods, they are either not adapted for use in a conceptual design phase or do not cover CS-23 category aircraft. This paper details a semi-analytical methodology compliant with the performance-based certification criteria presented by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to predict the structural mass breakdown of a wing. This makes the method applicable to any aircraft regulated by EASA CS-23. Results have been validated with the conventional twin-engine aircraft Beechcraft 76, the innovative NASA X-57 Maxwell concept using DEP, and the commuter aircraft Beechcraft 1900.

Overall Aircraft Design: From the open-source FAST-OAD to its training branch

“…The open source version provides a flexible and practical framework that allows researchers and industrial actors all around the world, to extend the entire aircraft design process to new challenging aircraft configurations, in-house models and higher fidelity approaches. FAST-OAD has been experienced in many applications such as commercial aviation [6], general aviation [7], electrical distributed propulsion [8], hydrogen based propulsion [9,10], multi-rotor drones [11] and Blended Wing Body design [12].…”