Environmental and Flight Control System Architecture Optimization from a Family Concept Design Perspective

Hoz, Carlos Cabaleiro De La; Bussemaker, Jasper; Fioriti, Marco; Boggero, Luca; Ciampa, Pier Davide; Nagel, Björn

doi:10.2514/6.2020-3113

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Primary flight controls are used to command the aircraft in flight through pitch, roll and yaw control. They are constantly active during the whole mission [2]. For commercial aircraft, they include the rudder, ailerons and elevators.…”

Section: Introduction and State Of The Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performance and Reliability Evaluation of Innovative High-Lift Devices for Aircraft Using Electromechanical Actuators

Cabaleiro de la Hoz,

Fioriti,

Boggero

2024

Aerospace

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In the last decades, electromechanical actuators started to be introduced in transport aircraft for primary and secondary flight control surfaces. Some innovative architectures have been proposed in the literature to use these actuators for high-lift devices (flaps and slats). The state-of-the-art architecture is built with a central mechanical shaft powered by a power distribution unit connected to ballscrew actuators that actuate the flap and slat surfaces. New innovative concepts have the potential to improve the state-of-the-art architectures. However, there is a lack of quantitative results for such innovative architectures. A new methodology is proposed to preliminarily estimate performance and reliability aspects of conventional and innovative architectures. This allows quantitative comparisons to finally be obtained. The methodology is applied to a new architecture that uses electromechanical actuators for flaps and slats, providing results in terms of performance and reliability and comparing them to the current state-of-the-art high-lift devices. Results show that the new architecture is lighter than the reference one and can be more reliable. This is achieved thanks to the removal of the mechanical links among components, which allows each control surface to be deployed independently from the others. This highly increases the operational reliability of the system. Two cases are analyzed, with and without actuator jamming. This provides more realistic results since this failure mode is currently the main reason why electromechanical actuators are not being used for more applications. The innovative architecture outperforms the conventional one in the case where the electromechanical actuators are not affected by the jamming failure mode.

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Section: Introduction and State Of The Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Secondary flight controls are only used in some specific segments of the mission profile (e.g., approach, landing, take-off, etc.). Their main function is to momentarily modify the wing geometry to increase lift and/or drag [2]. For commercial aircraft, they consist of spoilers, flaps and slats.…”

Section: Introduction and State Of The Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance and Reliability Evaluation of Innovative High-Lift Devices for Aircraft Using Electromechanical Actuators

Cabaleiro de la Hoz,

Fioriti,

Boggero

2024

Aerospace

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“…However, most of these reliability modeling methods over-rely on the subjective experience of experts, especially for large complex systems, which have complex coupled causality. Even if the same reliability modeling method is used to model one system, the models established by different modelers are likely to be different, making it difficult for experts to judge the rationality of the models [26,27]. System reliability design is a process of iterating the design scheme until the reliability meets the design requirements [8,28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Three-State Space Modeling Method for Aircraft System Reliability Design

Wang,

Feng

et al. 2023

Machines

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Reliability is an inherent attribute of a system through optimal system design. However, during the aircraft system development process, the reliability evaluation and system function design efforts are often disconnected, leading to a divide between reliability experts and system designers in their work schedule. This disconnect results in an inefficient aircraft system reliability optimization process, known as the “two-skin” phenomenon. To address this issue, a three-state space model is proposed. Firstly, an analysis was conducted on the relationship between the system function architecture developed by the system designers and the reliability evaluation performed by the reliability experts. Secondly, based on the principle of function flow, the state of failure was categorized into “physical failure” and “non-physical failure”. Additionally, a new state of “function loss” was introduced as the third state for the system, in addition to the traditional states of “normal” and “faulty”. Thirdly, through the state of “Function loss”, an effective integration of system fault modes and function modes was achieved, leading to an optimized system reliability model. A three-state space modeling method was then developed by transforming the system function architecture into a system reliability model. Finally, this new model was applied to an aircraft’s rudder and fly-by-wire control system. The results demonstrate that the function architecture at the design stage of the system can be accurately transformed into the new three-state space model. The structure aligns closely with the function architecture and can be effectively utilized in quantitative system reliability calculations. In this way, the process of ensuring system reliability can be seamlessly integrated into the system optimization design process. This integration alleviates the issue of disjointed work between reliability experts and system designers, leading to a more streamlined and efficient aircraft system optimization process.

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“…Zhang et al [15] built the commonality system of civil aircraft operation support at two levels (i.e., product level and business process level) in accordance with the characteristics of Chinese civil aircraft operation support at this stage. Carlos et al [16] mentioned that in the design of jet aircraft series, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can reduce development and manufacturing costs through family concept design, although there is a trade-off between member performance and commonality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Commonality Evaluation and Prediction Study of Light and Small Multi-Rotor UAVs

Zhang,

Zeng,

Cao

2023

Drones

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Light small-sized, multi-rotor UAVs, with their notable advantages of portability, intelligence, and low cost, occupy a significant share in the civilian UAV market. To further reduce the full lifecycle cost of products, shorten development cycles, and increase market share, some manufacturers of these UAVs have adopted a series development strategy based on the concept of commonality in design. However, there is currently a lack of effective methods to quantify the commonality in UAV designs, which is key to guiding commonality design. In view of this, our study innovatively proposes a new UAV commonality evaluation model based on the basic composition of light small-sized multi-rotor UAVs and the theory of design structure matrices. Through cross-evaluations of four models, the model has been confirmed to comprehensively quantify the degree of commonality between models. To achieve commonality prediction in the early stages of multi-rotor UAV design, we constructed a commonality prediction dataset centered around the commonality evaluation model using data from typical light small-sized multi-rotor UAV models. After training this dataset with convolutional neural networks, we successfully developed an effective predictive model for the commonality of new light small-sized multi-rotor UAV models and verified the feasibility and effectiveness of this method through a case application in UAV design. The commonality evaluation and prediction models established in this study not only provide strong decision-making support for the series design and commonality design of UAV products but also offer new perspectives and tools for strategic development in this field.

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Environmental and Flight Control System Architecture Optimization from a Family Concept Design Perspective

Cited by 3 publications

References 19 publications

Performance and Reliability Evaluation of Innovative High-Lift Devices for Aircraft Using Electromechanical Actuators

Performance and Reliability Evaluation of Innovative High-Lift Devices for Aircraft Using Electromechanical Actuators

A Three-State Space Modeling Method for Aircraft System Reliability Design

Commonality Evaluation and Prediction Study of Light and Small Multi-Rotor UAVs

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