A Simulation-Based Performance Analysis Tool for Aircraft Design Workflows

A simulation-based approach for take-off and landing performance assessments is presented in this work. In the context of aircraft design loops, it provides a detailed and flexible formulation that can be integrated into a wider simulation methodology for a complete commercial aviation mission. As a matter of fact, conceptual and preliminary aircraft design activities require iterative calculations to quickly make performance predictions on a set of possible airplane configurations. The goal is to search for a design that best fits all top level aircraft requirements among the results of a great number of multi-disciplinary analyses, as fast as possible, and with a certain grade of accuracy. Usually, such a task is carried out using statistical or semi-empirical approaches which can give pretty accurate results in no time. However, those prediction methods may be inappropriate when dealing with innovative aircraft configurations or whenever a higher level of accuracy is necessary. Simulation-based design has become crucial to make the overall process affordable and effective in cases where higher fidelity analyses are required. A common example when flight simulations can be effectively used to support a design loop is given by aircraft mission analyses and performance predictions. These usually include take-off, climb, en route, loiter, approach, and landing simulations. This article introduces the mathematical models of aircraft take-off and landing and gives the details of how they are implemented in the software library JPAD. These features are not present in most of the currently available pieces of preliminary aircraft design software and allow one to perform high fidelity, simulation-based take-off and landing analyses within design iterations. Although much more detailed than classical semi-empirical approaches, the presented methodologies require very limited computational effort. An application of the proposed formulations is introduced in the second part of the article. The example considers the Airbus A220-300 as a reference aircraft model and includes complete take-off and landing performance studies, as well as the simulation of both take-off and landing certification noise trajectories.