Open Source Distributed Electric Propulsion MDAO Tool

The team of Design, Analysis and Research Corporation (DARcorporation) and University of Michigan (UM)nbsp; propose an open source Distributed Electric Propulsion MDAO (DEP-MDAO) Tool, in which a new framework for aircraft aeropropulsive design optimization that integrates aircraft sizing, propulsion system sizing and distribution, wing design and propeller design will be developed.nbsp;The core idea is to optimize all these simultaneously to get the full benefit of distributed electric propulsion. The proposed framework will leverage the open-source tools OpenMDAO (a general framework for the multidisciplinary analysis and optimization) and OpenConcept (an aircraft sizing tool build that uses OpenMDAO). The major advantage of these tools is that they use efficient methods to converge the coupled system and they can compute the sensitivities required for gradient-based optimization. This results in fast optimization cycles, which makes it possible to thoroughly explore trades in the design space.The goal of the proposed work is to facilitate the DEP integration into an aircraft by developing an open source optimization analysis tool, DEP-MDAO.nbsp; The followings are the detailed technical objectives of the project:Develop DEP propeller modelingDevelop aircraft modeling in MDAO frameworkIntegrate DEP propellers and aircraft for design optimizationValidation and verification through a UAV test case.