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Abstract:
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Aerospace is a maturing industry with successful and refined baselines which work well for traditional baseline missions , markets and technologies . However , when new markets (space tourism ) or new constrains (environmental ) or new technologies (composite , natural laminar flow ) emerge , the conventional solution is not necessarily best for the new situation . Which begs the question "how does a design team quickly screen and compare novel solutions to conventional solutions for new aerospace challenges ?" The answer is rapid and flexible conceptual design Parametric Sizing . In the product design life -cycle , parametric sizing is the first step in screening the total vehicle in terms of mission , configuration and technology to quickly assess first order design and mission sensitivities . During this phase , various missions and technologies are assessed . During this phase , the designer is identifying design solutions of concepts and configurations to meet combinations of mission and technology . This research undertaking contributes the state -of -the -art in aircraft parametric sizing through (1 ) development of a dedicated conceptual design process and disciplinary methods library , (2 ) development of a novel and robust parametric sizing process based on `best -practice' approaches found in the process and disciplinary methods library , and (3 ) application of the parametric sizing process to a variety of design missions (transonic , supersonic and hypersonic transports ) , different configurations (tail -aft , blended wing body , strut -braced wing , hypersonic blended bodies , etc . ) , and different technologies (composite , natural laminar flow , thrust vectored control , etc . ) , in order to demonstrate the robustness of the methodology and unearth first -order design sensitivities to current and future aerospace design problems .This research undertaking demonstrates the importance of this early design step in selecting the correct combination of mission , technologies and configuration to meet current aerospace challenges . Overarching goal is to avoid the reoccurring situation of optimizing an already ill -fated solution . |