DiPaRT 2019 - RAWAvCon Presentation

I shall be attending this years DiPaRT conference in Bristol in late November where I will be speaking about my RAWAvCon capability. The abstract for this is provided below

The ‘RAWAvCon’ Whole Aircraft Modelling Capability

Richard Wilson

RAW Aviation Consulting Ltd

The RAWAvCon Whole Aircraft Modelling Capability provides a rapid assessment capability of aircraft concepts using a detailed flight performance model using a calculated drag polar, empty weight and engine models. RAWAvCon is the result of >25 years’ experience of whole aircraft modelling using modelling systems developed by the author in academic, industry and research organisations. RAWAvCon uses public domain data to deliver a capability at least the equal of that established by the author in all previous models.

RAWAvCon has been used to model a wide range of transport aircraft from the 30 seat Dornier 328 turboprop through to the 500+ seat Airbus A380-800 including many sub-variants. This includes almost all current production aircraft from Airbus, Boeing Bombardier, Embraer, ATR, de Havilland Canada, Dornier, Mitsubishi, etc. All airframe and engine modelling plus whole aircraft performance outcomes are based on or calibrated against public domain aircraft data and methods derived from public domain data.

The model has also been used to size aircraft configurations models based on published or expected Top Level Aircraft Requirements (TLARs), aircraft attributes and technology trends for aircraft expected to enter service in the future, e.g. 777-9/-8, NMA, and technology study aircraft. Many earlier generation aircraft have also been modelled to provide a broader scope on technology trends for various aircraft components and requirements.

RAWAvCon has also been extended to model the aircraft level benefits of less-conventional airframe and engine concepts against a given set of TLARs. Hybrid-Electric and Full Electric propulsion models have been created and applied to an A321 class aircraft for successful customer studies: it is a simple task to include this on any other of the baseline aircraft models as required.

Published Hybrid/Blended Wing Body (H/BWB) configurations have also been modelled based on methods adapted from the conventional configuration for many components with new parametric methods for novel features, e.g. centre body mass, based on published airframe company data.

RAWAvCon will continue to develop to include helicopters and general aviation aircraft as well as tilt-rotors and other less conventional aircraft – using the proven hybrid and full electric propulsion models, e.g. ultimately eVTOL.

RAWAvCon is an ideal capability to rapidly explore novel aircraft configurations with a 1st principle flight performance model for mission performance, field performance, critical design point analysis and flight segment (e.g. climb time/distance) performance.

Where suitable underlying analysis methods do not already exist, new methods can be generated using higher fidelity methods to create response surfaces, pareto fronts, surrogate models or the results from other similar aircraft level research can be incorporated into RAWAvCon. Once integrated, sensitivity studies can be easily performed to understand the robustness of the technology or concept. This work can set technology requirements to help direct further research and analysis.

Such analysis requires subject matter expertise and tools beyond the capability of RAW Aviation Consulting Ltd.; hence partnership is viewed as the ideal way forward to better understand the system level benefits of advanced technology and less conventional airframe and propulsion architecture.