A DoE-based approach for the implementation of structural surrogate models in the early stage design of box-wing aircraft

Cipolla, Vittorio; Salem, Karim Abu; Palaia, Giuseppe; Binante, Vincenzo; Zanetti, Davide

doi:10.1016/j.ast.2021.106968

Cited by 29 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…To compute structural and system weight, the tool FLOPS developed by NASA has been used [60]: According to [60], structural weight includes wings, tails, fuselage, nacelle and paint; system weight considers control surfaces actuators, instruments, avionics, anti-icing and furnishing. It is worth noting that the classical model for cantilever wings overestimates the structural mass of the box-wing architecture [75][76][77][78], so the results reported in this paper (e.g., estimation of MTOW) are conservative. This tool is versatile since it can be used for aircraft ranging from general aviation to transport aircraft categories; in this paper, the general aviation category has been selected, since the weight formulation, adopted in this paper and described in FLOPS, have been specifically derived for general aviation aircraft category.…”

Section: Weight Estimationmentioning

confidence: 98%

A Conceptual Design Methodology for e-VTOL Aircraft for Urban Air Mobility

et al. 2021

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Recent progress of electric systems has raised attention towards hybrid-electric and full-electric aircraft. Nevertheless, the current low battery energy density limits the application of these propulsive architectures to large transport aircraft. In the context of the general aviation category, full-electric aircraft for the so-called Urban Air Mobility scenario are gaining increasing interest. These air taxis, also called e-VTOL, are conceived to exploit vertical take-off and landing capabilities, to carry people from one point to another, typically within the same city. In this paper, a new conceptual design methodology for urban air vehicles is presented and applied to an innovative convertiplane, called TiltOne, based on a box-wing architecture coupled with tilt-wing mechanisms. Several TiltOne configurations have been designed according to the current regulations imposed by European Union Aviation Safety Agency, and sensitivity analyses have been carried out on the varying main design parameters, such as wing loading and propellers’ disk loading, as well as main top-level aircraft requirements. The results provide an overview for today’s operational capabilities of such aircraft and, in addition, depict possible scenarios for a near-future horizon, based on the assumption of increased performance levels for the electric powertrain components. In such scenario, two different concepts of operations are analysed and discussed: the first is based on a given design range, long enough to cover the urban distances; the second is conceived to exploit the capability of flying multiple shorter missions with a single battery charge. The designed TiltOne configurations derived from these different approaches are presented, highlighting their potential capabilities and possible drawbacks.

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Section: Weight Estimationmentioning

confidence: 98%

A Conceptual Design Methodology for e-VTOL Aircraft for Urban Air Mobility

et al. 2021

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“…The main constraint resulting from the choice to retrofit a baseline aircraft is imposed on the MTOW. Since the main structure of the lifting system and of the fuselage was sized considering the maximum take-off weight calculated in PARSIFAL [47], it is necessary to maintain the same limit on the maximum take-off weight also in this study.…”

Section: Mission Analyses 261 Reference Aircraft and Lh 2 Aircraft De...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Parametric Approach for Conceptual Integration and Performance Studies of Liquid Hydrogen Short–Medium Range Aircraft

Cipolla

Zanetti²,

Salem

et al. 2022

Applied Sciences

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The present paper deals with the investigation, at conceptual level, of the performance of short–medium-range aircraft with hydrogen propulsion. The attention is focused on the relationship between figures of merit related to transport capability, such as passenger capacity and flight range, and the parameters which drive the design of liquid hydrogen tanks and their integration with a given aircraft geometry. The reference aircraft chosen for such purpose is a box-wing short–medium-range airplane, the object of study within a previous European research project called PARSIFAL, capable of cutting the fuel consumption per passenger-kilometre up to 22%. By adopting a retrofitting approach, non-integral pressure vessels are sized to fit into the fuselage of the reference aircraft, under the assumption that the main aerodynamic, flight mechanic, and structural characteristics are not affected. A parametric model is introduced to generate a wide variety of fuselage-tank cross-section layouts, from a single tank with the maximum diameter compatible with a catwalk corridor to multiple tanks located in the cargo deck, and an assessment workflow is implemented to perform the structural sizing of the tanks and analyse their thermodynamic behaviour during the mission. This latter is simulated with a time-marching approach that couples the fuel request from engines with the thermodynamics of the hydrogen in the tanks, which is constantly subject to evaporation and, depending on the internal pressure, vented-out in gas form. Each model is presented in detail in the paper and results are provided through sensitivity analyses to both the technologic parameters of the tanks and the geometric parameters influencing their integration. The guidelines resulting from the analyses indicate that light materials, such as the aluminium alloy AA2219 for tanks’ structures and polystyrene foam for the insulation, should be selected. Preferred values are also indicted for the aspect ratios of the vessel components, i.e., central tube and endcaps, as well as suggestions for the integration layout to be adopted depending on the desired trade-off between passenger capacity, as for the case of multiple tanks in the cargo deck, and achievable flight ranges, as for the single tank in the section.

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“…The main constraint resulting from the choice to retrofit a baseline aircraft is imposed on the MTOW. Since the main structure of the lifting system and of the fuselage has been sized considering the maximum take-off weight calculated in PARSIFAL [47], it is necessary to maintain the same limit on the maximum take-off weight also in this study.…”

Section: Preprintsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Parametric Approach for Conceptual Integration and Performance Studies of Liquid Hydrogen Short-Medium Range Aircraft

Cipolla¹,

Zanetti²,

Salem³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The present paper deals with the investigation, at conceptual level, of the performance of short-medium-range aircraft with hydrogen propulsion. The attention is focused on the relationship between figures of merit related to transport capability, such as passenger capacity and flight range, and the parameters which drive the design of liquid hydrogen tanks and their integration with a given aircraft geometry. The reference aircraft chosen for such purpose is a box-wing short-medium-range airplane, object of study within a previous European research project called PARSIFAL, capable to cut the fuel consumption per passenger-kilometre up to 22%. By adopting a retrofitting approach, non-integral pressure vessels are sized to fit into the fuselage of the reference aircraft, under the assumption that the main aerodynamic, flight mechanic and structural characteristics are not affected. A parametric model is introduced to generate a wide variety of fuselage-tank cross-section layouts, from a single tank with the maximum diameter compatible with a catwalk corridor to multiple tanks located in the cargo deck , and an assessment work-flow is implemented to perform the structural sizing of the tanks and analyse their thermodynamic behaviour during the mission. This latter is simulated with a time-marching approach that couples the fuel request from engines with the thermodynamics of the hydrogen in the tanks, which is constantly subject to evaporation and, depending on the internal pressure, vent-ed-out in gas form. Each model is presented in detail in the paper and results are provided through sensitivity analyses to both the technology parameters of the tanks and the geometric parameters influencing their integration. The guidelines resulting from the analyses indicate that light materials, such as the Aluminium alloy AA2219 for tanks’ structure and polystyrene foam for the insulation, should be selected. Preferred values are also indicted for the aspect ratios of the vessel components, i.e. central tube and endcaps, as well as suggestions for the integration layout to be adopted depending on the desired trade-off between passenger capacity, as for the case of multiple tanks in the cargo deck, and achievable flight ranges, as for the single tank in the section.

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A DoE-based approach for the implementation of structural surrogate models in the early stage design of box-wing aircraft

Cited by 29 publications

References 26 publications

A Conceptual Design Methodology for e-VTOL Aircraft for Urban Air Mobility

A Conceptual Design Methodology for e-VTOL Aircraft for Urban Air Mobility

A Parametric Approach for Conceptual Integration and Performance Studies of Liquid Hydrogen Short–Medium Range Aircraft

A Parametric Approach for Conceptual Integration and Performance Studies of Liquid Hydrogen Short-Medium Range Aircraft

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