Exploring Multi-Fidelity Aeroelastic Tailoring: Prospect and Model Assessment

TL;DR

This paper investigates multi-fidelity optimisation techniques for aircraft wing design, combining low- and high-fidelity models to improve efficiency and accuracy in aeroelastic tailoring within a multidisciplinary design framework.

Contribution

It introduces a concurrent optimisation approach that integrates beam-based and shell-based models for aircraft wing design, enhancing design exploration and reducing computational costs.

Findings

Multi-fidelity optimisation is feasible for aeroelastic tailoring.

Concurrent optimisation improves design quality over sequential methods.

Early high-fidelity information enhances overall aircraft performance.

Abstract

The design and optimisation of aircraft wings are critical tasks in aerospace engineering, requiring a balance between structural integrity, aerostructural performance, and manufacturability. This multifaceted challenge involves the interplay of various disciplines, each with distinct parameters and constraints. Traditional design approaches often fall short, necessitating advanced methodologies like Multidisciplinary Design Optimisation (MDO). MDO integrates aerodynamic, structural, and manufacturability analyses to explore a vast design space and identify optimal solutions that meet performance, safety, and cost criteria. The work highlights the challenge of optimising aircraft designs using multiple models of varying fidelity. Traditional sequential optimisation approaches, which progressively integrate disciplines, may miss potential superior designs due to limited initial information. Instead, concurrent optimisation schemes are explored, utilising both low-fidelity (beam-based) and high-fidelity (shell-based) models. This approach promises structural feasibility, reduces computational costs, and incorporates high-fidelity information early in the design process. The envisioned methodology bridges different design stages, enabling better overall aircraft performance. By aligning and comparing a beam-based and shell-based model, the study explores their use in multi-fidelity optimisation. The results demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of this approach, offering a robust framework for future aircraft design projects.