Parameterization of Curvilinear Spars and Ribs for Optimum Wing Structural Design

A parameterization of the aircraft shape is needed for a correct mathematical definition of the structure and its components. The parameterization allows the definition of the geometry as a function of a few meaningful parameters. Traditionally, the aircraft industry focused on developing a universal parameterization of the aircraft outer mold line to facilitate the automatic construction of complex aerodynamic meshes to be used in computational fluid dynamics calculations and aerodynamic shape optimization problems. More recently, the attention of researchers has shifted toward the internal structure topology parameterization. The introduction of new design concepts such as SpaRibs (spars and ribs) requires the capability to define the geometric shape of the internal wing components for a correct automatic generation of the finite element mesh. The aim of this research is to present a simple and efficient way to parameterize the topology of the internal structure of complex wings. Spline curves are used ...