Wing shape optimization

Wing-shape optimization is a software implementation of shape optimization primarily used for aircraft design. This allows for engineers to produce more efficient and cheaper aircraft designs.

Shape optimization, as a software process and tool, first appeared as an algorithm in 1995 and as commercial software for the automotive industry by 1998, as noted by F. Muyl. Relative to the age of the automotive and aeronautical companies, this software is very new. The difficulty was not with the science behind the process, but rather the capabilities of computer hardware. In 1998, F. Muyl developed a compromise between exact accuracy and computational time to reduce drag of an automotive. GA phases are the standard genetic algorithm iterations and the BFGS phases are the approximated calculations designed to save time. However, he acknowledged that the computational time required on existing hardware, nearly two weeks for a moderate improvement on an oversimplified proof of concept model, made it unattractive for commercial purposes. He also recognized that improving the modeling implementation to use automatic partial derivatives might improve the computational time, particularly with specialized hardware. In 2000, after a couple years of computer hardware development, K. Maute introduced a more accurate system that could optimize an aircraft wing quickly enough for commercial use.

Wing-shape optimization is by nature an iterative process. First, a baseline wing design is chosen to begin the process with; this is usually the wing created by aerospace engineers. This wing is assumed to be reasonably close to a best-fit design from the engineers. The next step is to model the wing shape and structure. Once those are mapped out, the software flies the model in a simulated air tunnel using well-developed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) equations. The results of the test give the various performance characteristics of that design. Once that completes, the software makes incremental changes to the structure and shape details, recreates the model, and flies the new model through a wind tunnel. If the changes result in a better performing wing, then the software commits the changes. If not, the changes are thrown out and different changes are made. The changes are then saved as the new working model and the cycle will loop. This entire process is run until the changes observed appear to converge on a design – such as when the changes are under 1 mm.

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