Development and Validation of a Virtual Prototype Airframe Design as Part of the Survivable Affordable Repairable Airframe Program

The Survivable Affordable Repairable Airframe Program (SARAP) Virtual Prototype and Validation (VPV) Program is a multi year technology investment agreement (TIA) between Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation and the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technical Directorate (AATD) to validate technology advances in design processes, structural efficiency, crashworthiness, materials and manufacturing processes, and repairability of rotorcraft airframe structures. Specific objectives of the SARAP VPV program include a 25% weight reduction, 40% recurring and 40% non-recurring cost reduction, maintaining crashworthiness, and field repairability of the structure as compared to a 2002 technology baseline. The overall program approach included a comprehensive identification, review and evaluation of various design, analysis, material, and manufacturing technologies. Concurrent with this evaluation was a periodic technology risk assessment used to track the expected benefit from each technology to the overall program metrics. This assessment was used to adjust the program technology portfolio as necessary in order to converge on the technologies that offered the best opportunity to achieve the overall program goals. This process was also used to adjust technical plans during the program and helped to identify the need for sub-element and building block tests necessary to further reduce the risk of individual technologies and manufacturing concepts. After completing the technology assessment portion of the program the selected technologies were applied to a UH-60 cabin conceptual design (i.e. Virtual Prototype) as a means to measure the benefit of the technologies against the baseline. Once the UH-60 cabin Virtual Prototype was completed, and as a means to validate the structural capability and manufacturing scale-up of the various technologies, a subset of the SARAP UH-60 cabin Virtual Prototype was defined as a Technology Validation Article (TVA). The TVA was detail designed, manufactured, assembled and subsequently full-scale tested.