Multidisciplinary Optimization of a Regional Jet Including Advanced Airframe and Engine Technologies

Aircraft design activities involve several disciplines, whose effects are typically interrelated with each other. The adoption of a multidisciplinary approach is rather fundamental in the design of an aircraft, in order to effectively account all the primary and secondary effects due to changes to one or more design variables. One of the main limitations during the design process of a novel aircraft configuration has always been the lack of communication and exchange of information between aircraft specialists and engine design and performance experts. Even modern software supporting aircraft design activities suffer several limitations in this regard. Moreover, the analysis of innovative aircraft configurations, equipped with the latest airframe technologies, requires the introduction of these technologies and their related multidisciplinary effects in the aircraft design chain. The work performed for the European Clean Sky 2 ADORNO project goes exactly in this direction. An advanced target Y2025+ aircraft model, equipped with advanced under-wing-mounted turbofan engines (designed by MTU Aero Engines AG, topic manager of the project) and innovative airframe technologies, has been designed and analyzed for the second work package of project activities. A UNINA in-house developed framework for aircraft multidisciplinary analyses and optimizations has been used to carry out all the reported activities. A multi objective optimization, concerning block fuel and direct operating costs, has been carried out including both advanced airframe and engine technologies. The performance in terms of block fuel (thus emissions) of the target aircraft model has been compared with that of a reference Y2014 model, previously designed for the project, to check the achieving of the ambitious objectives of Clean Sky 2 in terms of emissions reductions.