Application of Statistical Energy Analysis and Optimization in the Design of Gulfstream's G150 Interior Thermal / Acoustic Package

Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) models were created and analyzed of the Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation (GAC) G100 mid-cabin and G150 wide-cabin, high speed business jets to assist in the design efforts of the G150 cabin interior development program. The G100 was used as a model validation platform due to the existence of extensive test data. Once satisfied that the modeling technique and material properties were adequately characterizing the G100 aircraft, a G150 model was created and predictions were made. Additionally, optimization was performed successfully on the G150 SEA model to reduce the weight of the thermal / acoustic package without adversely affecting the acoustic performance. This analytical modeling effort was the first of its kind to be used at Gulfstream during an early development phase in helping to design and optimize a GAC lightweight interior thermal / acoustic package. This paper describes the specifics of analytical modeling as part of the G150 interior development effort by rendering an overview of the SEA models, constructs used to develop the models, applied loads, response of the models, and correlation of results to test data. Cambridge Collaborative Inc.'s SEA software SEAM3D and Engineous Software's optimization code iSIGHT were used in this analysis effort.