Aeroelastic challenges in the clean aviation hybrid-electric regional aircraft project

ifasd2024 Tracking Number 170

Air vehicles operating in inter-urban regional connections could take benefit of adopting hybrid-electric propulsion technologies and associated complementary solutions for reducing the environmental footprint of aviation, towards climate neutrality. Airbus Defence and Space is partner of a consortium which, as part of the Clean Aviation Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA), is responsible of the engineering solution of a short-range (500-1000 km) Hybrid-Electric Regional Aircraft, one of the new aircraft architectures that will thrust the aviation towards 2050 climate neutrality. This paper summarises the aircraft architecture solution and the aeroelastic challenges/technologies that will be developed during the different phases of the project. Some of the technologies developed for supporting the design of the HERA aircraft are: 1. The Hybrid-Electric Regional Architecture (HERA) aircraft will include distributed propeller-type propulsion with inertia and aerodynamic impacts on wing component that shall be considered thru high-fidelity simulations. These simulations are performed using a Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) procedure based on MSC/.Nastran coupled with different High-Fidelity aerodynamics solvers. A graphical workbench DYNFSI is being developed to increase robustness and enhance the user experience when calculating 1-way or 2-way unsteady aerodynamics. 2. The rigid-body response of the aircraft will be improved by introducing the Integrated Flexible Aircraft Model (IFAM), with improved coupling between flight mechanics and aeroelastic formulation, all integrated in the industrial procedure of Airbus Defence and Space (DYNRESP and DYNLOAD tool suites) to calculate Dynamic Loads. The Structural Dynamics and Aeroelasticity in the HERA project will be described with emphasis on the previous two points, declaring the maturity status on each of them and future activities up to 2026 (LCOs/flutter suppression activities, wind-tunnel tests, digitalization of methods and tools, etc.) References: Clean aviation HERA project: https://www.clean-aviation.eu/hybrid-electric-regional-aircraft M. Karpel, M. Weiss, J. Barrera, E. Santos, F. Arévalo, and H. Climent, Aeroservoelastic Response and Stability Framework with Computational Aerodynamics, AIAA SciTech Forum, 2020 M. Reyes, H. Climent, M. Karpel, F. Arévalo, and C. Maderuelo, Examples of increased-order Aeroservoelastic modelling, CEAS Aeronautical Journal, 2019 D.H. Baldelli, P.C. Chen, and J. Panza, Unified Aeroelastic and Flight Dynamic Formulation via Rational Function Approximations, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 43, No. 3, May-June 2006