Research project: Influence of Aerodynamic Models on Flight Simulation

The work will be developed around the CEASIOM software, which is a very extensive package for aircraft conceptual design. The objective of this project is to integrate, develop, and validate the aerodynamic module which is the core of the entire software. The aerodynamic module generates aerodynamic data for flight simulation analyses, and allows structural flexibility effects to be evaluated. In aircraft design, the geometry often changes because unwanted characteristics are discovered or to improve an existing design and the ability to treat complex geometries in an efficient way is key to this work. A tight integration between the geometry and aerodynamic modules is thus vital.

Tables of aerodynamic forces and moments are used in flight dynamics analysis. These tables can be derived from difference sources, including analytical/numerical methods, wind tunnel tests, and flight tests. Whereas the proposed work will use mainly simulation tools, the cost of table generation still remains prohibitively expensive because a large number of flight conditions should be assessed. To drastically reduce the cost, we will exploit sampling methods based on Kriging interpolation.