Chen Bai, Luo Mingqiang, Shen Zhong, Wu Zhe, Man Yiming and Fang Lei
International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sicences, vol. 15, no. 4, pp.383-395, 2014

Abstract : According to the requirement of wing weight estimation and frequent adjustments during aircraft conceptual design, a wing weight estimation method considering the constraints of structural strength and stiffness is proposed to help designers make wing weight estimations rapidly and accurately. This method implements weight predictions on the basis of structure weight optimization with stiffness constraints and strength constraints, which include achievement of wing shape parametric modeling, rapid structure layout, finite element (FE) model automated generation, load calculation, structure analysis, weight optimization, and weight computed based on modeling. A software tool is developed with this wing weight estimation method. This software can realize the whole process of wing weight estimation with the method and the workload of wing weight estimation is reduced because much of the work can be completed by the software. Finally, an example is given to illustrate that this weight estimation method is effective.

Keyword : weight estimation, aircraft conceptual design, weight optimization, load computation, parameterized modeling