TiGL - An Open Source Computational Geometry Library for Parametric Aircraft Design

This paper introduces the software TiGL: TiGL is an open source high-fidelity geometry modeler that is used in the conceptual and preliminary aircraft and helicopter design phase. It creates full three-dimensional models of aircraft from their parametric CPACS description. Due to its parametric nature, it is typically used for aircraft design analysis and optimization. First, we present the use-case and architecture of TiGL. Then, we discuss it's geometry module, which is used to generate the B-spline based surfaces of the aircraft. The backbone of TiGL is its surface generator for curve network interpolation, based on Gordon surfaces. One major part of this paper explains the mathematical foundation of Gordon surfaces on B-splines and how we achieve the required curve network compatibility. Finally, TiGL's aircraft component module is introduced, which is used to create the external and internal parts of aircraft, such as wings, flaps, fuselages, engines or structural elements

Streamlining Cross-Organizational Aircraft Development: Results from the AGILE Project

The research and innovation AGILE project developed the next generation of aircraft Multidisciplinary Design and Optimization processes, which target significant reductions in aircraft development costs and time to market, leading to more cost-effective and greener aircraft solutions. The high level objective is the reduction of the lead time of 40% with respect to the current state-of-the-art. 19 industry, research and academia partners from Europe, Canada and Russia developed solutions to cope with the challenges of collaborative design and optimization of complex products. In order to accelerate the deployment of large-scale, collaborative multidisciplinary design and optimization (MDO), a novel methodology, the so-called AGILE Paradigm, has been developed. Furthermore, the AGILE project has developed and released a set of open technologies enabling the implementation of the AGILE Paradigm approach. The collection of all the technologies constitutes AGILE Framework, which has been deployed for the design and the optimization of multiple aircraft configurations. This paper focuses on the application of the AGILE Paradigm on seven novel aircraft configurations, proving the achievement of the project’s objectives

TiGL: An Open Source Computational Geometry Library for Parametric Aircraft Design

This paper introduces the software TiGL: TiGL is an open source high-fidelity geometry modeler that is used in the conceptual and preliminary aircraft and helicopter design phase. It creates full three-dimensional models of aircraft from their parametric CPACS description. Due to its parametric nature, it is typically used for aircraft design analysis and optimization. First, we present the use-case and architecture of TiGL. Then, we discuss it's geometry module, which is used to generate the B-spline based surfaces of the aircraft. The backbone of TiGL is its surface generator for curve network interpolation, based on Gordon surfaces. One major part of this paper explains the mathematical foundation of Gordon surfaces on B-splines and how we achieve the required curve network compatibility. Finally, TiGL's aircraft component module is introduced, which is used to create the external and internal parts of aircraft, such as wings, flaps, fuselages, engines or structural elements

Integration aspects of the collaborative aero‑structural design of an unmanned aerial vehicle

Overall aircraft design is a complex multidisciplinary process, which requires knowledge from many different fields such as structures, aerodynamics, systems and propulsion. For unconventional configurations lacking an empirical knowledge base, higher fidelity physics-based methods are required to reliably estimate the feasibility of a given new design concept. Analysis tools and results are provided by highly specialized groups of experts, possibly from different organizations. In the AGILE (aircraft 3rd generation MDO for innovative collaboration of heterogeneous teams of experts) project, new approaches to setting up cross-organizational collaborative aircraft design optimization workflows have been investigated, including the employment of common parametric aircraft configuration schema as a central common data schema and the provision of disciplinary analysis competences as callable services. Following this paradigm, the present paper details a distributed workflow to perform an aero-structural design optimization of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) design. Taking advantage of disciplinary capabilities provided by several partners based in various locations across Europe, an integrated design workflow including a distributed and tightly coupled aero-structural analysis loop has been assembled using the process integration and design optimization system remote component environment developed at the German Aerospace Center. To enable the necessary load and displacement transfer between non-matching disciplinary meshes, a versatile and lightweight algorithm using radial basis functions has furthermore been implemented. The functionality of the workflow is demonstrated by performing the optimization on the baseline configuration of the UAV

Integration Aspects of the Collaborative Aero-Structural Design of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Overall aircraft design is a complex multidisciplinary process, which requires knowledge from many different fields such as structures, aerodynamics, systems and propulsion. For unconventional configurations lacking an empirical knowledge base, higher fidelity physics-based methods provided by highly specialized Groups of experts are required to reliably estimate the feasibility of a new design concept. Following this premise, a collaborative workflow to perform an aero-structural design optimization of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) design has been established as part of the AGILE project [1]. The disciplinary competences are provided by several partners based in various locations across Europe. Whereas the structural expertise is provided by Airbus Defence and Space, the CFD competence is provided by Airinnova and CFS Engineering, who also perform the analysis. The missing interfaces between the individual partners, as well as the overall integration are handled by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of System Architectures in Aeronautics, which also contributes the Common Parametric Aircraft Configuration Schema (CPACS) [2, 3], the common source data structure for the model generation. This paper details the integration tasks performed at DLR. An algorithm for load and displacement transfer between non-matching meshes has been implemented using radial basis functions [4, 5]. Furthermore, an executable workflow has been assembled using the Remote Component Environment (RCE) [6, 7] developed at DLR, which allows each partner to expose their competence as a callable service. The functionality of the workflow is demonstrated by performing the optimization on a set of design variations of the baseline configuration of the UAV