An Aircraft from Nothing - Towards Configuration Design of Flying Vehicles using Topology Optimization

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-1674.vid How should the future transport aircraft look like? In other words, if we want to carry a certain amount of payload over a certain distance, with a given set of technologies, how should the flying vehicle look like to e.g. minimize energy consumption? The choice of aircraft configuration has so far been a human-driven task. Designers, based on their knowledge, experience, and of course bias used to suggest different configurations, each with its pros and cons. It is accepted that to reach the goal of minimum emission novel configurations might be needed compared to the traditional tube and wing configuration. There are multiple different disruptive configurations have been suggested so far by various industries and academics. Which one is the best, we do not know! Even if we can compare them all and find the best one, it does not mean that there is no better configuration. In this work, we introduce the idea of aircraft configuration design from scratch using multidisciplinary topology optimization. As the first step, a novel approach is presented for aerodynamic topology optimization in external flows. This approach is used to create an object out of nothing for the best aerodynamic performance. The outcome showed a surprise configuration, which outperforms the available flying objects in its regime, i.e., the flying regime of micro air vehicles.