A Study On Integrated Aerodynamic/Structural/Propulsive Design Of Solar Powered Aircraft

Solar powered aircraft is an electric powered aircraft which takes power from solar radiation. It is the outcome combining aeronautical technology with new energy technology. As a new concept of aircraft, its aerodynamic, structural and propulsive systems are deeply coupled. This thesis aims at how to apply multidisciplinary design optimization methods to the integrated aerodynamic/structural/propulsive design of the solar powered aircraft.Based on the two-level optimization approach, we decomposed the integrated design into a system-level optimization and three subsystem-level optimizations. The task of system-level optimization is to find the shared and auxiliary design variables to minimize the take-off weight, subject to the consistency constraints; the task of each subsystem optimization is to find the local design variables to minimize or maximize objective, subject to theirs local design constraints. The involving of auxiliary design variables and consistency constraints provides a way to decouple the disciplines and makes the parallel subsystem optimization possible. Surrogate models are used in aerodynamic and structural analysis in order to reduce the difficulty and improve the computing speed. The research proves that the multidisciplinary design optimization method can efficiently decrease the take-off weight of the aircraft. This thesis also investigated the effect of some overall parameters on take-off weight.The design processes are accomplished automatically using the general optimization software iSIGHT. The design cycle can be shorted with the aid of the software iSIGHT.