Conceptual Design Oriented Wing Structural Analysis and Optimization

<p>Airplane optimization has always been the goal of airplane designers. In the conceptual design phase a designer's goal could be tradeoffs between maximum structural integrity minimum aerodynamic drag or maximum stability and control many times achieved separately. Bringing all of these factors into an iterative preliminary design procedure was time consuming tedious and not always accurate. For example the final weight estimate would often be based upon statistical data from past airplanes. The new design would be classified based on gross characteristics such as number of engines wingspan etc. to see which airplanes of the past most closely resembled the new design. This procedure works well for conventional airplane designs but not very well for new innovative designs. With the computing power of today new methods are emerging for the conceptual design phase of airplanes. Using finite element methods computational fluid dynamics and other computer techniques designers can make very accurate disciplinary-analyses of an airplane design. These tools are computationally intensive and when used repeatedly they consume a great deal of computing time. In order to reduce the time required to analyze a design and still bring together all of the disciplines (such as structures aerodynamics and controls) into the analysis simplified design computer analyses are linked together into one computer program. These design codes are very efficient for conceptual design. The work in this thesis is focused on a finite element based conceptual design oriented structural synthesis capability (CDOSS) tailored to be linked into ACSYNT.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>