UNICADO – A Software for Conceptual Aircraft Design

Aircraft conceptual design has been used for years to develop new aircraft configurations or to evaluate new technologies in existing configurations. For this reason, competence-driven aircraft preliminary design environments have been developed worldwide, especially in universities, which are more or less at the same level. Since synergy potentials regarding the core competences of the universities remain unused, the association of the universities involved in the UNICADO research project is unique. The aim of the project is to bundle this synergy potential in the form of a common developed and used aircraft conceptual design environment. This paper describes this design environment developed based on RCE and the associated boundary conditions regarding the design of CS-25 compliant aircraft. UNICADO is implemented as a modular architecture for an easy extensibility and exchangeability of modules and disciplines. For an exact statement about the quality of the results, the developed platform is validated by means of a comparison with the existing MICADO by RWTH Aachen University. The main design mode as well as the implemented calibration modes will be validated and critically evaluated using the CeRAS CSR-01 reference aircraft. Subsequently, the results of the design of a CeRAS short- and medium-range aircraft and a CeRAS long-range configuration are presented and compared with selected reference aircraft. The comparison of the CSMR-01 and CLR designed with UNICADO to the reference aircraft on the market shows that the design environment developed for the early design phase delivers very good results. The resulting percentage deviations between the design and the reference aircraft are less than one percent for all convergence variables considered. This shows that the cooperative approach to bundle core competencies and exploit synergy potentials is effective and should be intensified in further project phases. UNICADO provides a solid foundation for the development of modern, climate-friendly aircraft. Extending the software with more advanced methods will improve the ability to model disruptive configurations and alternative propulsion concepts. Being designed as open-source software, anyone can use, understand and improve the software and contribute their own ideas for future aircraft configurations.