Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:04:05.806Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Optimisation of aero-manufacturing characteristics of aircraft ribs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2022

T. Kim*
Affiliation:
Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
T. Kipouros
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
A. Brintrup
Affiliation:
Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
J. Farnfield
Affiliation:
GKN Aerospace Services, Filton, UK
D. Di Pasquale
Affiliation:
School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing, Cranfield University, Cranfield, UK

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to combine the currently separate objectives of aerodynamic performance and manufacturing efficiency, then find an optimal point of operation for both objectives. An additional goal of the study was to explore the effects of changes in design features, the position of the spars, and analyse how the changes influenced the optimal operating conditions. A machine-learning approach was taken to combine and model the gathered aero-manufacturing data, and a multi-objective optimisation approach utilising genetic algorithms was implemented to find the trade-off relationship between optimal target objectives (mission performance and manufacturability). The main achievements and findings of the study were: The study was a success in building a machine-learning model for the combined aero-manufacturing data utilising software library XGBoost; multi-objective optimisation, which did not include spar positions as a variable found the trade-off region between high manufacturability and high mission performance, with choices that offered reasonably high values of both; there was no clearly identified correlation between a small change in spar position and the target objectives; multi-objective optimisation with spar positions resulted in a trade-off relationship between target objectives, which was different from the trade-off relationship found in optimisation without spar positions; multi-objective optimisation with spar positions also offered more flexibility in the choice of manufacturing processes available for a given design; and the range of bump amplitudes for solutions found by multi-objective-optimisation with spar positions was lower and more focused than those found by optimisation without spar positions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal Aeronautical Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Jameson, A. Successes and challenges in computational aerodynamics, 8th Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jameson, A. A perspective on computational algorithms for aerodynamic analysis and design, Prog. Aerospace Sci., 2001, 37, (2), pp 197243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marler, R.T. and Arora, J.S. Survey of multi-objective optimization methods for engineering, Struct. Multidiscip. Optim., 2004, 26, (6), pp 369395.Google Scholar
Chen, T., Wang, X., Sun, X. and Bai, C. Optimization layout of damping material using vibration energy-based finite element analysis method, J. Sound Vibr., 2021, 504, (116117).Google Scholar
Aghabozorgi, F., Cho, D.-S., Kim, K.C. and Nili-Ahmadabadi, M. Development and validation of a hybrid aerodynamic design method for curved diffusers using genetic algorithm and ball-spine inverse design method, Alexandria Eng. J., 2021, 60, pp 30213036.Google Scholar
Ye, H., Li, B., Yang, Q. and Zhang, Y. Mechanical behavior of composite bistable shell structure and surrogate-based optimal design, Struct. Multidiscip. Optim., 2021, 64, pp 303–320.Google Scholar
Dati, G., De Angelis, E., Marrone, M., Lampani, L., Gaudenzi, P. and Bernabei, M. On the evaluation of impact damage on composite materials by comparing different ndi techniques, Compos. Struct., 2014, 118, pp 257266.Google Scholar
Maginness, M., Shehab, E., Beadle, C. and Carswell, M. Principles for aerospace manufacturing engineering in integrated new product introduction, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. Part B J. Eng. Manuf., 2013, 228, (7), pp 801810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rebentisch, E., Myles Murman, W. and Earll, M. Challenges in the better, faster, cheaper era of aeronautical design, engineering and manufacturing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division, March 2000.Google Scholar
Nikhil Bharadwaj, V.V.S., Shiva Shashank, P., Harish, M. and Garre, P. A review on lean manufacturing to aerospace industry, Int. J. Eng. Res. General Sci., 2015, 3, (4), pp 429–439.Google Scholar
Crute, V., Ward, Y., Brown, S. and Graves, A. Implementing lean in aerospace–challenging the assumptions and understanding the challenges, Technovation, 2003, 23, (12), pp 917928.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longato, M.M. Support an S-Duct Optimization Design Study Using State-of-the-Art Machine Learning Techniques, Master’s Thesis, Universita degli Studi di Padova, 2020.Google Scholar
Caruana, R. and Niculescu-Mizil, A. An empirical comparison of supervised learning algorithms, Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Machine learning - ICML 06, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, T. and Guestrin, C., Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 2016.Google Scholar
Introduction to Boosted Trees. https://xgboost.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorials/model.html. Accessed 27 April 2020.Google Scholar
Darrell, W. A genetic algorithm tutorial, Stat. Comput., 1994, 4, (2), pp 65–85.Google Scholar
Deb, K., Pratap, A., Agarwal, S. and Meyarivan, T. A fast and elitist multiobjective genetic algorithm: Nsga-ii, IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput., 2002, 6, (2), pp 182197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inselberg, A. The plane with parallel coordinates, Visual Comput., 1985, 1, (2), pp 6991.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inselberg, A. Don’t panic … just do it in parallel!, Comput. Stat., 1999, 14, (1), pp 5377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinrich, J. and Weiskopf, D. Continuous parallel coordinates, IEEE Trans. Comput, Visualization . Graphics, 2009, 15, (6), pp 1531–1538.Google Scholar
Inselberg, A. Parallel Coordinates Visual Multidimensional Geometry and Its Applications, Springer Verlag, New York, NY, 2009.Google Scholar
Piotrowski, W., Kipouros, T. and Clarkson, P.J. Enhanced interactive parallel coordinates using machine learning and uncertainty propagation for engineering design, IEEE eScience, 2019, pp 339–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martins, J.R.R.A., Li, J. and Bouhlel, M.A. A data-based approach for fast airfoil analysis and optimization, AIAA J., 2018, 57, (2), pp 581–596.Google Scholar
Shyy, W., Haftka, R., Mack, Y. and Goel, T. Surrogate model-based optimization framework: A case study in aerospace design, Evol. Comput. Dyn. Uncertain Environ., 2007, 51, pp 323342.Google Scholar