With its activities in the field of preliminary aircraft design and technological evaluation, as well as the operation of a fleet of research aircraft, DLR has a high level of in-depth knowledge with regard to sizing loads and their determination. At DLR, many institutes use pragmatic approaches up to high-precision methods to address partial aspects of load analysis. In the current DLR project iLOADS, the objective is to pool knowledge in the field of loads analysis across various institutes and to provide this for analysis at DLR. In its project management, the Institute of Aeroelasticity is concerned with the definition of a higher level load process, which will be implemented in the project on the basis of application examples from the field of concept design, comprehensive load analyses for a DLR research aircraft and determination of loads which are relevant for approval of modifications to a research aircraft.
Extension of the loads analysis process
At the Institute of Aeroelasticity, loads analyses are provided as part of a design and evaluation process. In many cases, fast methods are used, which represent the industrial state-of-the-art. Furthermore, the validation of loads analysis methods, as well as improvement of the precision of these methods, is the focus of work at the Institute. Activities include the setup and use of a gust test bed in the DNW as well as extension of the loads analysis process by increased use of CFD. For this, both directly coupled simulations of the aerodynamics, structure and flight mechanics are carried out, as well as development of methods which improve the quality of rapid loads analysis methods with a limited number of selected CFD analyses.