Aicraft Design and nOise RatiNg for regiOnal aicraft

Project Information

ADORNO

Grant agreement ID: 821043

DOI

10.3030/821043

Project closed

EC signature date 17 October 2018

Start date 1 November 2018

End date 31 October 2022

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 400 000,00

EU contribution

€ 400 000,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ADORNO (Aicraft Design and nOise RatiNg for regiOnal aicraft)

Reporting period: 2021-11-01 to 2022-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

A major challenge in the transport sector is to make economic growth compatible with sustainability and environmental constraints, while remaining competitive and innovative. To achieve ambitious objectives in terms of emissions reduction, the engine integrated technology demonstrators play a priority role. As a matter of fact, among Clean Sky 2 programme, engine demonstrators and technologies are the most important contributors to the emissions reduction aimed in Horizon 2020.
The innovative engine technologies must be investigated by integrating them into a concept aircraft, to assess more precisely their environmental impact. The development of aeronautical products is a complex multidisciplinary process, with requirements and constraints on the complete aircraft system and on its individual components, including the engines. A major issue, which has prevented aircraft manufacturers from implementing efficient and cost-effective design processes, is the loose integration of engine models into iterative aircraft design workflows.
This is the research context of ADORNO, a Clean Sky 2 project aiming to enable fast and reliable estimation of aircraft environmental noise and pollutant emissions at different mission phases, through the implementation of a flexible aircraft model which provides requirements for the engine platform in terms of thrusts and off-takes at different power settings and flight conditions. The development of an aircraft model with an integrated engine interface is in fact the key enabler to deliver innovative and constantly evolving aircraft products in a time and cost-efficient manner, easing the interaction between engine and aircraft designers. This will allow to reduce design times, both in the conceptual and preliminary phases, and will enable engine manufacturers to maintain and strengthen competitiveness.
At the completion of the project, all these main objectives were successfully matched. A tool for preliminary aircraft noise calculations was developed by UNINA and LeadTech, partner in the project, and integrated by MTU, topic manager of ADORNO, in its IT framework. The multi-disciplinary design and analysis framework provided by UNINA for the project, together with a flexible aircraft modeler that can be easily coupled with external engine files, was extensively used to perform trade-off analyses and to carry out the design of two innovative concept models.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Two reference (year 2014) aircraft models were designed in the first place. These two aircraft, one with underwing-mounted (UM) engines, the other one with rear-mounted (RM) engines, were conceptually designed by adopting a modern design framework specifically developed for the project. Top-level requirements similar to those of the Airbus A220-300 drove the design process, which was carried out following a multidisciplinary design and optimization approach.
By means of the same multidisciplinary approach and using the same set of reference top-level requirements, target (year 2025+) UM and RM aircraft concept models were designed. New evolutionary airframe technologies were accounted for the design of these aircraft, allowing to reduce aerodynamic drag and reduce structural weight. MTU performed the design of a new high-bypass ratio geared turbofan engine, following thrust requirements and power off-takes provided by UNINA for the concept aircraft models. The selection of the final engine design was performed by MTU using trade factors on fuel burn produced by UNINA using the ADORNO framework of tools. The results in terms of emissions of the target aircraft models were compared to those of their relative reference models, highlighting the matching of Clean Sky 2 objectives on gaseous emissions and a remarkable reduction for environmental noise at certification points.
A tool for preliminary aircraft noise calculations was developed for ADORNO, included and tested in an aircraft design chain, and used to carry out the analyses of the abovementioned reference and target aircraft models. This tool, called ATTILA++, was developed by UNINA and LeadTech, with specifications provided by MTU. Validation of the tool and its calculation modules was carried out and documented. The tool, once finalized, was integrated by MTU in its IT-framework, to be eventually used also in activities outside the ADORNO project.
Linear trade factors on fuel burn depending on changes applied to the powerplant system were developed for the regional aircraft platform considered in the project. An improved trade factor approach, taking also into account changes applied to the aircraft to match top-level requirements and minimize fuel burn, was also developed. The applicability of these trade factors was successfully tested. These trade factors were delivered to MTU and could be used for new preliminary evaluations outside the scope of the ADORNO project.
The main outcomes and achievements of the project were all disseminated by participating to international conferences (AIDAA, AIAA AVIATION) and by organizing workshop and seminars focused on the principal topics covered by the project. The subjects addressed by ADORNO did also promote spin-off research, with Master’s degree and Ph.D. theses being developed around its topics.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The ADORNO project aimed at several ambitious achievements, to go beyond the present state of the art in terms of aircraft system chain.
Since engine integration is crucial to reduce time-to-convergence of the entire design process, the framework built for the ADORNO project seeks to consider powerplant system architecture together with airframe and systems layout till the preliminary design stages of a new aircraft. Within the ADORNO design and analysis framework, an engine performance and emissions dataset can be easily imported and exported in several commonly used data formats.
Environmental noise is an increasingly challenging topic not only from the aircraft certification point of view, but also from local authorities, which often require different acoustic indicators to be addressed. The noise tool developed for ADORNO fulfills these needs. It comes as a stand-alone application, enabling noise estimations by managing a reasonable amount of input data. It allows to manage user-defined noise metrics, by allowing the customization of flight trajectories and receiver’s positions. It can also be easily integrated with other tools providing, for example, engine noise data.
Emissions is another increasingly demanding topic in aerospace industry. The analysis framework put in place for the ADORNO project allows, thanks to a dedicated module, to predict pollutant emissions with few inputs required and allows users to easily customize their analyses.
The above-mentioned tools and features will for sure contribute to the expected impacts requested in the Clean Sky 2 work programme. In fact, the project provided technology solutions to address relevant industrial challenges. ADORNO contributed to emissions reduction goals by using integrated tools for reliable prediction of environmental impact, starting from the very early design stages. It allowed to exceed environmental targets, by implementing an integrated aircraft-engine design optimization. In addition, the exploitation of the ADORNO framework will bring to an increased competitiveness of engine manufacturers due to a more efficient design process with a consequent lower time-to-market.

Final RM target aircraft conceptual model.

Final UM target aircraft conceptual model.