The wings bend, the tank contents slosh, the load of passengers and cargo varies from flight to flight – aircraft are highly complex systems that are influenced by countless variables. What are the effects if some of them change? Or all of them? In future, the answers will only be a few clicks away: Scientists from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have developed the basis for a complete digital development and description of aircraft in the VicToria project.
13 DLR institutes with more than 160 researchers were involved in the project VicToria(Virtual Aircraft Technology Integration Platform). “We are now able to carry out virtual flight tests that can be compared in detail with real flight tests,” explains Prof. Stefan Görtz, project manager at the DLR Institute for Aerodynamics and Flow Technology in Braunschweig . “That means we can build a virtual model of an airplane or helicopter with all its properties.” This can be used, for example, to improve passenger comfort during gusts or maneuvers. But it goes far beyond that: DLR can virtually design, test and fly aircraft that do not yet exist. This includes the opportunity to evaluate new technologies that should make flying more environmentally friendly and economical.
Aerodynamics, aeroelasticity, load analysis, flight dynamics and structure in one
“We are consistently advancing towards the digitalization of aviation,” says Prof. Stefan Görtz. In the VicToria project, which ran for four years with a volume of 36 million euros, DLR brought together all the relevant disciplines: aerodynamics, aeroelasticity, load analysis, flight dynamics and structure. The virtual tests with a “digital twin” of the DLR research aircraft ATRA were checked with data from wind tunnel tests and from real flights. In this way, the simulation models could be continuously adapted. A stereo camera system, for example, measured the deformation of the wings during various flight maneuvers.
The idea of developing and certifying an aircraft purely digitally came about almost 50 years ago. At that time it was believed that real tests would soon be dispensed with – a mistake: On the one hand, computer performance was limited, and on the other, complicated flows could not yet be correctly represented. This is now with the help of numerical simulationpossible. The scientists are now assuming that the development process will increasingly rely on simulation and that the first flight will take place virtually on the computer in the future – also because financial and economic risks can be kept within reasonable limits. Then the real experiments are carried out for verification and confirmation. Future certification of airplanes and helicopters using computer-based simulations is now also getting closer. The DLR is also working on corresponding simulation tools in the SimBaCon (Simulation Based Certification) project.