Methods for estimating the effect of variations of design variables on the weight of an aircraft component

Abstract

A method of designing an aircraft component formed by a number of elements (j), that includes a phase to estimate the effect of a variation of a design variable on the component weight comprising the following steps: a) providing the main primary structure basic data of the aircraft component and the Reserve Factors (RFij) associated to its design criteria (i); b) obtaining a breakdown of the component weight by said design criteria (i) using a fictitious weight (mefRFij) calculated taking into account the relative importance of their critical design criteria; c) obtaining the weight effect of a design variable variation, recalculating firstly the new Reserve Factors (RFij) using suitable functions for the variation of said Reserve Factors (RFij) vs. the variation of said design variable and, secondly, recalculating the component weight using suitable functions for the variation of the element (j) dimensions vs. the variation of said Reserve Factors (RFij).

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.