A new EU project, coordinated by the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, is to develop a new computer-aided holistic solution for the early phase of aircraft design.
The EU project ‘Simulating aircraft stability and control characteristics for use in conceptual design’, also known as SimSAC, has been launched to coordinate research in many different disciplines that could contribute to an aircraft’s performance.
This knowledge would be transferred to computer simulations that could predict how the aircraft would perform, allowing designers to eliminate potential flaws very early on in the design.
The budget is €5.1 million, with €3.3 million provided by the EU Commission. ‘New airplanes must meet rigorous requirements for energy efficiency, environmental friendliness, aviation safety, and high performance at a low operational cost. Early multidisciplinary work that is followed up throughout the developmental process is an indispensable tool,’ says Arthur Rizzi, a professor at the Department of Aeronautical and Vehicle Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, that is coordinating the project.
To meet these challenges, 17 leading representatives of the European academic community and the aeronautics industry from nine countries will now be collaborating in the SimSAC project.
‘We Europeans must step up our competence in the field, since Europe has fallen behind the US,’ says Rizzi.