Neoadjuvant and adjuvant doxorubicin chemotherapy in a case of feline soft tissue sarcoma

A 7-year old male neutered domestic shorthair cat was presented with a 2 month history of a slow-growing mass on the right zygomatic area. A CT scan revealed a soft tissue mass in the right zygomatic region with no alterations of the underlying bone and features of local invasiveness. Cytology was suggestive of a mesenchymal tumour and histopathology from an incisional biopsy was consistent with a soft tissue sarcoma (STS). The cat was treated with neoadjuvant intravenous doxorubicin chemotherapy at a dose of 25 mg/m2, every two weeks. The patient experienced a partial response and underwent surgical excision of the tumour. Doxorubicin was continued as an adjuvant treatment for three further chemotherapy sessions, at a dose of 25 mg/m2 every 21 days. Local tumour recurrence was detected on clinical examination and cytologically confirmed 259 days following surgery

Aeroelastic Design of the oLAF Reference Aircraft Configuration

One of the main aims of the EU Flightpath 2050 is to significantly reducet he fuel consumption of upcoming designs for transport aircraft. To achieve this challenging goal, new technologies have to be investigated. In this context, the development of the 'optimally load adaptive aircraft' (oLAF) for a conventional design is one of the main goals of the DLR project oLAF. Since the lift-to-drag ration, the structural mass and the thrust specific fuel consumption are the main drivers of the aircraft's fuel consumption, an improvement in all three topics seems to be a promising approach to fulfill the intended aims of the European Union. That's why the design of the new oLAF configuration is equipped with a next generation three shaft geared turbofan engine with an ultra-high bypass-ration and an optimized aerodynamic performance combined with aggressive loadalleviation (LA) techniques to lighten the load-carrying structure of the aircraft significantly compared to a conventional state-of-the-art aircraft. Multiple design cycles with different degree of fidelity and LA approaches are planned to be performed within oLAF. At the current state of the project, three different designs are available. On the one hand, there is the more basic configuration of the overall aircraft design (OAD) further called 'oLAF_SLv1'. On the other hand, there are configurations with more mature aerodynamic characteristics further called the oLAF_ASv0 configuration as start design for a multidisciplinary-design-optimization (MDO) process and the 'oLAF_ASv1' as the optimized result of the MDO. All configurations have been analyzed and evaluated using the aeroelastic structural design tool cpacs-MONA. The optimized 'oLAF_ASv1' configuration has furthermore been checked on aeroelastic stability. Conclusively, the stiffness of the structural pylon model has been adapted to shift a hump-mode of the new generation engine to higher airspeeds, so that the instability occurs outside of the flight envelope

Design of the strut braced wing aircraft in the agile collaborative MDO framework

The paper describes the deployment of the AGILE Development Framework to investigate the Strut Braced Wing aircraft configuration. The design process consists of a multilevel multidisciplinary architecture, progressing from the initial conceptual synthesis to the physics based analysis. All the main disciplinary domains, including on board system design and cost assessment, are accounted for in the assembled workflow. Due to the specific characteristics of the Strut Braced Wing configuration, the aeroelastic analysis is the main focus of the study and it is addressed at both high and low fidelity levels. The integration of the engine-wing system is also included in the design process. All the design competences, which are hosted at the different partners, communicate via CPACS (Common Parametric Aircraft Configuration Schema) data schema. All the results generated, including the multidisciplinary design process itself, will be published and made available as part of the AGILE Overall Aircraft Design database

MBSE Certification-Driven Design of a UAV MALE Configuration in the AGILE 4.0 Design Environment

This paper presents a certification-driven design process for an Unmanned Medium-Altitude- Long-Endurance (UAV MALE) air vehicle, including on-board system design and placements, electro-magnetic compatibility analysis, and thermal risk assessments. In literature, the preliminary aircraft design phase is mainly driven by mission performances and structural integrity aspects. However, the inclusion of other disciplines, like on-board system design or electro-magnetic compatibility, or thermal analysis, can lead to more efficient and cost- effective solutions and becomes paramount for non-conventional configurations like unmanned vehicles or highly electrified platforms. In the EC-funded AGILE 4.0 project (2019-2022), the traditional scope of the preliminary aircraft design is extended by including domains that are usually considered only in later design phases, such as certification, production and maintenance. In this paper, the AGILE 4.0 design environment supports the definition and execution of a certification-driven design process of a UAV MALE configuration, using a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach

MDO Architectures Comparison on Analytical Test Case and Aerostructural Aircraft System Design Problem

An aircraft system design problem is intrinsically a multidisciplinary problem. If the design configuration is unconventional, sound low-fidelity analysis methods are not available. Complex hi-fidelity tools are often the only solution to obtain reliable results, and for these reasons designers are deeply interested in the interactions and organization of these tools. Inside a Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) process, different architectures are possible. Analysis and comparison of six MDO architectures is the aim of this paper. The considered architectures are All-At-Once (AAO), Simultaneous Analysis and Design (SAND), Individual Discipline Feasible (IDF), Multidisciplinary Feasible (MDF), Collaborative Optimization (CO), Bi-Level Integrated System Synthesis (BLISS). The comparison is conducted on mathematical benchmark cases and on a simplified aerostructural aircraft design problem. Results expressed in a unified nomenclature are available as open source. Further, the CMDOWS (Common MDO Workflow Schema) developed in the AGILE project is used to translate the neutral description of the MDO problem into an executable implementation and it will be released as open source too. The aim is to promote the discussion on MDO architectures within the MDO research community