21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-4.7.1

FROM STRUCTURAL OPTIMIZATION TO MULTIDISCIPLINARY AND MULTILEVEL OPTIMIZATION

Petiau C.
Dassault Aviation, France

Keywords: structural optimization, multidisciplinary, multilevel, optimization

We present the state of the art of optimization techniques used through the design process of our aircraft, focusing on the airframe studies. We begin by recalling the main features of our multilevel design process from global to detail, with the presentation of "Definition Models" and "Analysis Models" used at each level. In this context we show the present place of mathematical optimizers at each level, used mainly both for design sizing, and for creating natural links between levels of definition (condensation of sized details via Lagrange Multipliers). Then we evoke the main axes ford : adaptation of CAD/CAE tools for easy handling of Design Variables, generalization of the Feature Modelling techniques to analysis/sizing, strategies of Multilevel/Multidisciplinary Optimization. Mathematical techniques for Robustness Analysis. We conclude by noting the present maturity of environment for the generalization of mathematical optimization techniques through the whole aircraft design process.

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