Innovative tools for aircraft preliminary design – development, applications and education

The Design of Aircraft and Flight Technologies Research Group (DAF) at University of Naples is involved in research activities addressing the development and application of new and innovative tools and frameworks for aircraft preliminary design. To build such new tools for aircraft design we believe that the following activities should be carried out: (a) derive new semi-empirical formulations (even through the construction of surrogate methods) which can be more accurate in the prediction of aircraft characteristics (especially for non-conventional configurations); (b) integrate medium to high fidelity tools into the analyses; (c) design with a multidisciplinary approach (i.e. including systems and direct operating costs); (d) include innovative propulsive systems; (e) deal with innovative configurations; (f) include new and efficient optimization algorithms; (g) use advanced software engineering to enhance tool capabilities, speed and usability (for example user-friendly graphic interface or inter-operability with other software). Recent research activities of the DAF group have been focused on the development and application of a new framework. Examples and applications in relevant European research projects can be presented. The development of these tools play also a relevant role in educational activities at the University of Naples as far aircraft design is concerned.