Performance optimisation of passenger aircraft coupling aerodynamics with aerostructures based on adjoint approach
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sheffield
Department Name: Mechanical Engineering
Abstract
Performance optimisation of passenger aircraft coupling aerodynamics with aerostructures based on adjoint approach
Studentship Projects
| Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EP/N509735/1 | 01/10/2016 | 30/09/2021 | |||
| 1948279 | Studentship | EP/N509735/1 | 01/10/2017 | 23/05/2021 | Anthony Stannard |
| Description | To optimise an aircraft while simultaneously considering aerodynamic and structural effects requires a method for coupling structural displacements (the wing changes shape in flight) and aerodynamics (the air flow is affected by the wing shape). A very popular method that is used in this coupling process is radial basis function (RBF) interpolation. It is very common to use a data-reduction algorithm along with RBF interpolation to drastically improve the efficiency of this interpolation procedure. To calculate the gradient of the aircraft drag with respect to the shape of the aircraft the coupled-adjoint method is used in this work. The adjoint method requires the transpose operation of the RBF interpolation to be performed. It was discovered that the use of a transposed RBF interpolation with a data-reduction algorithm significantly increased the computation time required to obtain the gradient. A remedy to this problem was proposed and successfully used to optimise a full aircraft configuration while considering both aerodynamic and structural effects. On top of this, a novel approach that considered control surface deflection within the aerodynamic-structural simulation was developed. This enabled the simulation to guarantee that all designs produced during the optimisation were feasible (I.E. the aircraft was balanced in flight). A paper titled "Hybrid Mesh Deformation for Aerodynamic-Structural Coupled Adjoint Optimization" has been approved for publication by the AIAA journal. Similarly, I passed my PhD viva with minor corrections but that too is still awaiting publication. |
| Exploitation Route | Industry can use this tool directly, especially Airbus as I have been working in collaboration with them and they have already set about implementing the tool for use in design of new aircraft. Future researchers can use the outcomes of this project to enhance the capability of the optimisation tool to include extra features such as structural parameterisation. |
| Sectors | Aerospace, Defence and Marine |