Airbus: Reducing Aircraft Weight by 500kg through IoT
Technology Category
- Drones - Fixed-Wing Drones
Applicable Industries
- Aerospace
- Life Sciences
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
About The Customer
Airbus is a global leader in the aerospace industry, known for designing and manufacturing state-of-the-art aircraft. They are committed to reducing the environmental impact of their products and have a strong focus on innovation and technology to achieve this. In this case, Airbus was designing the A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft, and wanted to ensure the design was as lightweight as possible while maintaining all performance standards. They sought the assistance of Altair ProductDesign to help them achieve this goal.
The Challenge
In the aerospace industry, the overall weight of an aircraft is a critical design requirement due to the impact just a few kilograms can have on fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions. Heavier aircraft use more fuel during flight which leads to increased running costs for the airline carriers. Airbus, while designing the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the A380, aimed to ensure the design was as lightweight as possible while maintaining all performance standards. The challenge was to reduce the weight of the aircraft without compromising on the performance standards.
The Solution
Altair ProductDesign was selected to assist in the development of the A380 by helping to define and implement a new optimization process to remove mass from the aircraft’s leading edge droop nose wing ribs. A two-step design process was implemented. Firstly, a set of predefined stress and buckling loads from Airbus were brought into Altair’s own optimization technology, OptiStruct. Based on these loads and the design space available within the wing assembly, OptiStruct’s topology, sizing and shape optimization technologies automatically identified the ideal material layout for the ribs. During the second phase, Altair ProductDesign engineers interpreted these topology results in order to develop a manufacturable structure. Each topology result of the 13 wing ribs was studied and a new, innovative material layout was created.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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