Aircraft weight estimation in interactive design process

Abstract

Amongst all the design modules employed in aircraft design process, weight module is the most significant one. Evaluating aircraft performance is dependent on a suitable aircraft weight in order to carry out its intended mission. In interactive design process, the weight design engineers usually follow one particular published methodology such as that proposed by Roskam or Torenbeek or etc. The main drawback of these methodologies is their limited accuracy to be applied to the vast variation of civilian aircraft. Furthermore, the non-availability of component-weight data, which may be used in evaluating maximum take-off weight, makes the design process difficult. Hence, new weight module has been applied to interactive design process. It suggests that many equations of different methodologies are applied to each aircraft component instead of applying one analyst’s methodology. Simultaneously, any formula that has secondary variables, which may not be available in the early stages of aircraft design, is rejected. The equation that gives the lowest average value is selected. The new module results show that the accuracy of the estimated operating empty weight and the maximum take-off weight is better than 5%.