Overview

Performing aircraft design studies and optimization requires a flexible, user-friendly and extensible design environment to be able to design both conventional and unconventional aircraft configurations and to consider innovative technologies. Against this background, an aircraft design environment for conceptual design and the early phases of preliminary design is being developed at the Chair of Aircraft Design for use in research and education. It is based on the universal, object-oriented data model ADDAM (Aircraft Design Data Model), which can be used for transport aircraft as well as for UAVs. For the individual sub-areas of aircraft design, an extensible collection of already existing as well as specially developed approaches and procedures is connected to the data model by means of a standardized interface. A library of aircraft, wing profiles, engines and materials increases reusability and facilitates the rapid investigation of different concepts.

Holistic Concept Evaluation in Conceptual Aircraft Design

The evaluation of novel, conceptual aircraft designs on the basis of operational parameters is in many respects a central objective of early phases of aircraft conceptual design. With the methodologies utilized in the research areas Aircraft Design and Future Trends & Technologies, as well as those developed within the framework of this research area, a wide range of possibilities are available, whose combination allows a more holistic view of the operation of future aircraft. Here, the focus is set on promising technologies to significantly decrease the environmental footprint of aviation, such as hydrogen or battery-powered (hybrid) aircraft. Methods for calculating emissions and climate impact during operation as well as complete life cycle analyses for ecological assessment and methods for determining direct operating costs for the economic analysis of these aircraft are being (further) developed at the Institute of Aircraft Design and in the first place applied at single aircraft level or on exemplary missions. To this end, special emphasis is paid to the comparison with existing or advanced conventional technologies, for which, in addition to the consideration of individual missions, the overall fleet view becomes central. In this way, the effects of new technologies on the fleet structure are estimated in dependence of entry-into-service dates and production capacities. Within the scope of a technology impact assessment, air traffic emissions are calculated for specific scenarios and placed in relation to each other. Effects of new technologies on the climate impact of aviation can thus be quantified on a global scale according to the technology’s fleet uptake. This holistic concept evaluation permits, among others, conclusions to be drawn about influential aircraft parameters as well as the significance of production capacities for achieving given climate targets.