A Multidisciplinary Possibilistic Approach to Size the Empennage of Multi-Engine Propeller-Driven Light Aircraft

Abstract

In considering aircraft design, it is very important to effectively size the tail configuration for stability and control. Multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) focuses on the use of numerical optimization in the design of systems with multiple subsystems or disciplines of consideration. However, MDO uses deterministic calculations, and does not consider the uncertainties that arise from the employed analyses, including errors due to linearization and simplification. For problems with inadequate input data, the possibility-based design optimization (PBDO) scheme can be implemented in its stead to achieve reliable designs using membership functions for epistemic uncertainties. A multidisciplinary, possibilistic approach is presented to define the sizing of the empennage configuration of a twin-engine propeller-driven aircraft by changing shape parameters while satisfying the design requirements given the tailless aircraft configuration, the flight conditions, and various uncertainties. The corresponding disciplines are aerodynamics, stability and control, propulsion and weight and balance. Herein, different design requirements are considered including longitudinal/lateral/directional trim and stability characteristics, manufacturing and controllability criteria, handling qualities, operational requirements, airworthiness and survivability. The resulting aerodynamic characteristics and flight dynamic stability outcomes show that the optimized tail configuration for the proposed aircraft fully complied with airworthiness requirements and predefined constraints while considering several uncertainties due to the use of early-stage statistical estimations. The proposed approach can be used to enhance the preliminary design of multi-engine propeller-driven light aircraft where only low-fidelity, statistical estimations are available. The resulting output is not only an optimized aircraft configuration, but one where the stability of the design has been ensured. In this work, the aerodynamic characteristics have been determined using a validated semi-empirical program called MAPLA, developed for light aircraft designs and development in the preliminary design phase. Furthermore, the optimization framework consists of a deterministic optimizer that runs sequentially with a possibility assessment algorithm.