COMPOSITE FUSELAGE DESIGN SYNTHESIS

Helicopter fuselage design results by integrating many performance technologies and satisfying competing goals of cost and weight. Performance technologies include strength, weight, durability, survivability, etc. Recently, design has been performed in a Computer-Aided Design (CAD) centric environment with the CAD database being the design authority supported by peripheral analysis. Design changes dictated by analysis become more and more costly as design detail is added. Due to the large CAD investment limited optimization occurs. Based on experience gained from Rotary Wing Structures Technology Demonstration, a structural design object centric approach is proposed. In this paradigm, 1D and 2D structural objects are defined with rudimentary geometric data sufficient to perform the respective analyses. These analyses in turn modify the structural object data resulting in an optimized design without CAD activity. When optimization is complete, CAD tools for detailed design parametrically extract structural object data.