A MULTIDISCIPLINARY TOOLBOX FOR ROTORCRAFT DESIGN
2018
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is currently developing a multidisciplinary toolbox for the design of conventional
and unconventional rotorcraft. The resulting design process will be the result of the DLR-internal project EDEN
(Evaluation and DEsign of Novel rotorcraft concepts), which is a joint study between the Institute of Flight Systems, the
Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology and the Institute of Structures and Design. The complexity of rotorcraft
design requires the development of the tools directly by the specialists of the respective institutes, where the tools are
continuously refined and published to authorized users. The integration of the tools into a suitable software framework
and the harmonization of the tools among each other are presented. This framework delivers a high level of modularity
making the layout and testing of the process very flexible. The implemented tools cover the conceptual and preliminary
design phases. The design process starts with an empty workspace and the minimum input of payload mass, range,
cruise speed, number of rotor blades and a rotor configuration. Not only conventional main/tail rotor configurations can
be designed, but also some other configurations with more than one main rotor. The fundamental concept behind the
layout of the tools inside the process is demonstrated, especially the use of scaling and optimization loops. The process
includes statistical methods to initialize the dataset, methods with more sophisticated physical models for the scaling task
and finite element methods for the best possible prediction of the structural properties quite early in the design process.
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