Having consistent design
details and materiality
across the project was
exceeding noise limits,
and so greatly expand
airport capacities. In
the future, we will also
see the role of predictive
maintenance grow in
prominence for aerospace.
Data analysis about the
performance, management and use
of aircraft will improve signicantly in the
coming years, with articial intelligence
enabling real-time monitoring of aircraft
systems in operation, identifying faults
and scheduling maintenance before they
have any impact on safety or operational
availability.”
If supersonic and hypersonic aircraft
can be engineered to reduce the cost of
a passenger mile, maintain or improve
safety, at the same time as reducing the
time taken to reach destinations, then
it will be a major part of future aviation.
However, with the tight operating margins
of current airlines, supersonic and
hypersonic may continue to be a niche
market within the wider civil aerospace
industry.
“Understanding the future of
hypersonic planes will be as much about
rolling out a digital prototype as a physical
one,” he concludes. “Today’s modelling
tools can address the technical and
process challenges of aircraft design
and make engineers’ dreams a reality.
With this new technology, the boundaries
of aerospace are being pushed to their
limits and the future of air travel is set
to transform. Whatever the ‘Son of
Concorde’ looks like, we can be assured
that the aerospace engineering behind it
will be as exciting and as ground-breaking
as the original.”
“Now it is possible for aircraft designers to use
modelling tools to create a complete dynamic and
operational model of an aircraft that can be
fully tested before a real aircraft is ready”
Chris Hayhurst, European consulting manager for MathWorks
aircraft manufacturers for the design and
manufacture of physical parts.”
BEHAVIOUR MODELLING
In terms of how tools have progressed,
the next phase of innovation was the
creation of dynamic behaviour modelling
that allowed designers to predict how
parts of the aircraft will behave, not just
their shape and composition. “Now it
is possible for aircraft designers to use
modelling tools to create a complete
dynamic and operational model of an
aircraft that can be fully tested before
a real aircraft is ready. This dramatically
reduces the time required to create the
nal aircraft and the number of expensive
redesigns required late in the aircraft
development.
“The nal aircraft is more likely
to meet all requirements and to be
adaptable to changing customer
requirements, because of the extensive
testing and redesign that is possible
virtually – before making expensive
physical changes to the aircraft and
associated systems.”
It’s also worth noting the collaborative
design method between the French
and British that made Concorde real.
“Sharing and simulating aircraft models
and transferring enormous data les
with today’s cloud computing have
revolutionised collaborative working and
would have been incredibly useful at
the time to accelerate the work for the
engineers involved on the project.”
So, on the anniversary of Concorde,
and with the ‘next-gen’ Concorde on
the radar, what does the future hold for
aircraft design? “Ultimately, fuel efciency,
operational cost, operational constraints
and safety are the main drivers of the
civilian aerospace market. Therefore,
any future designs will focus on these
requirements.”
ELECTRIFICATION FACTOR
To this point, one of the most active
areas of future aircraft development
that may reduce fuel usage and noise is
electrication, says Hayhurst. “A hybrid
or fully electric aircraft may be able to
take off and land 24 hours a day, without
www.ied.org.uk 25
/www.ied.org.uk