SUAVE: An Open-Source Environment for Conceptual Vehicle Design and Optimization

Abstract

SUAVE, a conceptual level aircraft design environment, incorporates multiple information sources to analyze unconventional configurations. Developing the capability to produce credible conceptual level design conclusions for futuristic aircraft with advanced technologies is a primary directive. This work builds upon previous work where SUAVE analyzed aircraft to show how SUAVE may be integrated into external packages to optimize aerospace vehicles.In the context of optimization, SUAVE operates as a "black-box" function with multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Several convenient functions are provided to enable connecting the optimization packages to SUAVE more easily. Assuming an optimization algorithm is minimizing an objective subject to constraints by iteratively modifying input variables, SUAVE's code structure is general enough to be driven from a variety of optimization packages. To this point, connections to PyOpt and SciPy have been integrated into SUAVE.We present results for a multi-mission regional aircraft, a family of UAVs and a tradeoff between noise and fuel burn on a large single-aisle aircraft. These designs show the immense amount of flexibility and diversity that SUAVE can handle. This includes various levels of fidelity. While SUAVE is setup from the beginning to handle multi-fidelity analysis, further study is necessary to integrate multiple fidelity levels into a single vehicle optimization.

Conceptual Design of Operation Strategies for Hybrid Electric Aircraft

“…It highlights the most relevant methods developed for the current hybrid electric propulsion applications instead of giving a general detailed description of the tool. Figure 3 describes the general approach of the modeling structure, which follows a typical aircraft conceptual/preliminary design logic [52][53][54][55]. Some important points are discussed in the following to better illustrate the features and modeling strategies.…”

Exploring Vehicle Level Benefits of Revolutionary Technology Progress via Aircraft Design and Optimization

“…Similar to the recent work endeavored at Stanford University [40] and MIT [30], the flexible physic-based aircraft design and technology integration tool being developed in the frame of the EWL project has the advantage of handling technology assessment problems with a wide design space, which is extremely important for early-stage aircraft configuration and technology identifications. In addition, the design tool is built to be able to incorporate multidisciplinary results for building surrogates, which can give reasonably accurate predictions at the overall aircraft level.…”

“…In addition, the design tool is built to be able to incorporate multidisciplinary results for building surrogates, which can give reasonably accurate predictions at the overall aircraft level. Following a typical aircraft conceptual/preliminary design logic [30,[40][41][42]-especially the very comprehensive aircraft design platforms developed at the TU Braunschweig (PRADO tool [43]) and at the RWTH Aachen University (MICADO tool [42]) in Germany, some features and modelling strategies are illustrated as follows. It has to be noted that the tool developed within the EWL project has a very good compromise between complexity and fidelity levels, which is more suitable for aircraft technology assessment for such a joint research project as compared to other tools already being developed.…”

“…Other aircraft component masses are calculated using surrogates models, based on literature [40]. Additional structure progress factor is used to reflect the structure mass reduction by advanced materials and light weight design.…”

Design and Optimization of Unconventional Aircraft Configurations with Aeroelastic Constraints

“…A schematic of the overall aeroelastic design framework is shown in Figure 1, and the components of the framework are described in the subsections below. 24,29 is an open-source conceptual design framework under development at the Aerospace Design Lab at Stanford University. It allows the definition of arbitrary aircraft configurations as a collection of wings, fuselages, and engines along with the definition of multiple missions composed of customizable segments.…”