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NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division World-class modeling, simulation, and supercomputing in support of the NASA mission

Aero-Structural Topology Optimization Framework for Transonic Aircraft Wingbox Design

AMS Seminar Series

Speaker: Prateek Ranjan, Computational Design Innovation Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Presentation

Seminar Slide Deck (PDF-17.2MB)

Abstract

Design of efficient aircraft configurations has always been a challenging endeavor. Complexities arise due to the integration of various sub-systems during manufacturing as well as due to the interdisciplinary interaction during various phases of flight. One specific form of such multi-disciplinary interaction is the non-linear aero-elastic response of the structure, which often results in undesirable performance attributes during flight. This seminar will discuss research in the field of aircraft Multi-Disciplinary Design Optimization, with a focus on both low and high-fidelity numerical techniques for coupled aerodynamic shape and structural topology optimization. It will cover low-fidelity techniques for aero-elastic topology optimization, followed by a discussion of a large-scale aircraft MDO framework that aims to solve a PDE-constrained optimization problem at transonic speeds. The result of the novel MDO framework is a load-bearing wing-box structure for the NASA Common Research Model configuration, at cruise condition. Preliminary results from a coupled aero-elastic topology optimization will be presented towards the end, followed by a summary of the on-going efforts in aircraft MDO for NASA’s University Leadership Initiative.

Biography

Photo of Prateek Ranjan
Prateek Ranjan is a doctoral candidate in the Computational Design Innovation laboratory at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since 2019, he has been involved in the aircraft design and optimization efforts at University of Illinois for the NASA’s ULI program wherein he has developed a large-scale aircraft shape and structural topology optimization framework. Through the development and application of this novel framework, he is currently studying the first principles of design optimization in a coupled design space, especially the tradeoffs and limitations of topology optimization for synthesizing load-bearing wing-box designs.