Flying into aerospace’s next generation with Set-based design, Trade-off curves and a knowledge shelf

The aerospace sector is tasked with creating a step change in product performance and cost to meet the evolving requirements of airlines, their passengers and the environment. To meet this challenge, there is a need to develop a multidisciplinary set-based design capability that can deploy new technologies on novel configurations more quickly and with greater confidence. The Configuration Optimization of Next Generation Aircraft (CONGA) project was launched to respond to this need by delivering robust product concepts for novel wing and power propulsion configurations. CONGA is a two-year project supported by the Technology Strategy Board, a governmental research funding organization in the United Kingdom. Along with England’s Cranfield University, the CONGA consortium has six industrial partners: Airbus, Airbus Group Innovations, Aircraft Research Association, Eurostep, MSC Software and Rolls-Royce.

The project aims to create an environment that will help develop design concepts leading to the agile convergence of feasible aircraft configurations that fulfill the properties, capabilities and behaviors required by the stakeholders. Industry wants the capability to evaluate a set of aircraft concepts rapidly and exclude subsets of aircraft concepts that are not feasible.

To achieve the CONGA project’s goals, the Lean Product and Process Development (LeanPPD) research team at Cranfield University has been conducting research with industrial partners to develop a number of lean enablers, including set-based design, trade-off curves and a knowledge shelf. These enablers were derived from the LeanPPD project. Each enabler and its current state are briefly discussed in the following sections.