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Integrated Propulsion System Modeling for Advanced Aircraft Using Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

AMS Seminar Series

Speaker: Anushka Tahiliani, MIT Gas Turbine Laboratory

Presentation

Seminar Slide Deck (PDF-2.5MB)

Abstract

Gas turbines will remain central to powering future transport aircraft, but their role within the propulsion system is expected to evolve. One emerging trend is the decoupling of power generation from thrust production that aircraft electrification enables. Rather than directly driving a fan, the core may operate as a heat engine driving an electric generator to power propulsors alone or alongside a battery. While the conversion of mechanical power to electrical power and back introduces additional losses and complexity, these effects can be outweighed by aircraft-level gains, including higher integration with distributed electric propulsion, blown-lift, and boundary-layer ingestion. Quantifying these trade-offs requires systematic, physics-based modeling of the engine, powertrain, and airframe across representative missions. Furthermore, realizing the potential benefits requires the gas turbines to be designed specifically as part of an integrated aircraft system rather than in isolation.

This talk presents an optimization-oriented propulsion modeling framework for integrated aircraft conceptual design. Parametric turbofan, turboshaft, and fan models are implemented in NASA's OpenMDAO environment using pyCycle and organized within a unified propulsion-system formulation. The framework supports conventional, turboelectric, and turbogenerator architectures with varying levels of electrification, enabling studies of core size, spool configuration, power extraction, and propulsion-system integration across on- and off-design conditions. By linking thermodynamic cycle modeling to aircraft-level optimization, this talk addresses two questions: (i) how to robustly co-optimize the propulsion system and airframe within an aircraft MDO framework, and (ii) how does gas-turbine modeling fidelity influences aircraft- and mission-level outcomes. The resulting framework provides a basis for assessing advanced propulsion architectures and identifying where future technology investment can most effectively enable efficient, low-emission transport aircraft.

Biography

Photo of Anushka Tahiliani
Anushka Tahiliani is an incoming Ph.D. student in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and a researcher in the DeCoDE Lab under Professor Faez Ahmed. She received her S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 2026, where she conducted research in the Gas Turbine Laboratory under the guidance of Professor Masha Folk and led propulsion-system modeling for Electra.aero’s team in NASA’s AACES 2050 program. Her paper, “A Robust Approach to Engine Cycle Modeling to Enable Multidisciplinary Optimization of Advanced Aircraft,” received first prize in the AIAA Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Student Paper Competition at AIAA AVIATION 2026 in San Diego. Tahiliani’s Ph.D. research will focus on AI-enabled aircraft design, generative methods for design-space exploration, and physics-based multidisciplinary optimization.