Aircraft concept development is the process of generating feasible concepts/configurations and selecting the one that best fulfills the requirements. It is a decisive step as it significantly affects the entire design process and ultimately the aircraft performance. Ideally, all possible configurations are considered during the concept development process. However, due to the enormous varieties of aircraft concepts, the method that considers all concepts and selects the best one is yet a challenge. Therefore, employing designers’ experience/intuition and/or replicating/evolving existing similar configurations remain the predominant methods used. Despite their advantages, such approaches may result in selecting poor configurations or overlooking valuable ones, especially when designing unconventional aircraft. Poor configurations significantly increase the design and manufacturing costs and time, as they typically require rework in the later design phases. This paper presents a systematic concept development methodology to efficiently generate and select the best aircraft configuration, during the conceptual design phase, using structured design methods. The methodology considers the identification and prioritization of all possible alternatives for the aircraft components, an effective generation of the candidate configurations, and selection of the best configuration. The methodology is exemplified via a case study where the best configuration for a highly maneuverable transitional unmanned aerial vehicle is selected.
Systematic Methodology for Aircraft Concept Development with Application to Transitional Aircraft
Journal of Aircraft ; 57 , 1 ; 179-197
2020-01-01
Conference paper , Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
NTIS | 1976
|Online Contents | 1996
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