Variable-Fidelity Conceptual Design System for Advanced Unconventional Air Vehicles, Phase I

Ongoing work in unconventional air-vehicles, i.e. deformable mold-lines and bio-mimetics, is beginning to provide the insight necessary to exploit performance benefits associated with unsteady flow phenomena. However, the current generation of conceptual design/analysis tools, based on empirical and heuristic models, is incapable of analyzing advanced concepts with confidence, and a new approach, which exploits recent and ongoing developments in unsteady aeromechanics, is needed. The proposed effort addresses these shortcomings by developing a hierarchical system of validated variable-fidelity physics-based aeromechanical tools for designing, analyzing and evaluating advanced concepts that employ aerodynamic shape change and other unsteady phenomena. This suite of state-of-the-art tools will be integrated as a design and analysis system which can rapidly and reliably perform "virtual expeditions" through the design space. In addition, validated subcomponents, ranging from real-time free-wake analyses and fully-coupled non-linear fluid-structure interaction tools to highly efficient CFD solvers with automated grid generation, will be made available as retrofittable modules for current tools. The capability to design and evaluate advanced concepts offered by this system directly addresses the long-term aircraft systems development goals of prospective users in both government and industry. The software will achieve TRL=4 during Phase I and TRL=7-8 by the end of Phase II.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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