The M3 DOE is a necessary tool to design aircraft in conceptual and/or preliminary design phases that establishes multi-fidelity unsteady aerodynamic loads and rapid aeroelastic shape design of complex flight vehicles. It can be directly employed for sizing and/or shape optimization of aircraft considering multi-disciplines like flutter, static aerodynamic loads, stress, strain, and buckling in conceptual and/or preliminary design phases. It is expected that this tool will readily be adopted by the aerospace industry and the U.S. DoD to develop a wide class of aerospace vehicles: UAVs/UCAVs, supersonic business jets and transports, advanced transonic transports, and fighter aircraft, hypervelocity missiles, and winged projectiles (with optimized fin/canard/wing). The M3 DOE has great potential to be adopted by the flutter and loads, conceptual design and configuration development departments of airplane manufacturers' both nationally and world-wide.
NASA has recognized the benefit of MDO framework applicable to design completely new aircraft and/or improve existing aircraft. The proposed M3 DOE can be directly applicable for sizing and/or shape optimization of aircraft while considering multi-disciplines like flutter, trim, stress, strain, and buckling in conceptual and/or preliminary design phases. The M3 DOE consists of a three-layer optimization strategy, a multi-fidelity aerodynamic discipline, and a finite element analysis including outer mold line morphing and topology re-meshing capability. The multi-fidelity aerodynamic disciplines include three types of aerodynamic methods, i.e., ZONA6/7 for linear subsonic and supersonic panel methods, ZTRAN method in ZAERO for transonic unsteady aerodynamics, and ZEUS (ZONA's Euler Unsteady Solver). The multi-strategy optimization approach provides designers with flexibility to select level of optimization as needed between structural sizing, topology optimization of the internal structure, and outer mold line shape optimization. The M3 DOE will allow NASA to more rapidly modify existing and/or design new aircraft by obtaining a higher level of fidelity in the optimized solutions.
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