Architecture-based design for multi-body simulation of complex systems

Architecture-based design for multi-body simulation of complex systems

Allegaert, Elias (Siemens PLM Software)
Lemmens, Yves (Siemens PLM Software)
la Rocca, G. (TU Delft Flight Performance and Propulsion)

Rassa, Bob (editor)

2017-10-26

As the complexity of high-tech systems continuously increases, engineers look for possibilities to reduce time and cost of the development of these systems. Architecture- based design enables a front-loaded design process with knowledge reuse. By enabling the automatic synthesis of simulation models, different configurations of an architecture can be realized and simulated efficiently. Current practices are found in the automotive and aerospace industry where architecture- based design is used for the automatic synthesis of multi-physics simulation models. In this way, different architecture options and simulation model variations can be efficiently investigated early in the development process. Multi-body simulations are also frequently used in the conceptual design of complex mechatronic systems. However a suitable methodology to synthesize their simulation models is lacking. This paper demonstrates that an architecture-based design approach can be used for the automatic synthesis of multi-body simulation models and a methodology is proposed to efficiently model and synthesize them. However, due to the geometric constraints, geometrical dependencies have been introduced between the sub-systems which requires a correct synthesis sequence that needs to be determined by solving a topological sorting problem. Subsequently, the methodology was evaluated with the conceptual design of an aircraft trailing-edge high-lift system. It was found that, concerning the time efficiency of the proposed approach, a trade-off needs to be made between the time that is saved by the automatic synthesis of simulation models and the time it takes to create the architectures and compatible subsystem models. Finally, the research suggests that an architecture-based design approach can be used for a diverse set of design problems involving different domain specific engineering tools. Therefore, the applicability is not limited to aerospace industry and it can as well bring advantages to other industries where the investigation of conceptual designs is an important but time-intensive activity.

Aerospace simulation
Complex systems
System architecture
Systems modelling

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1b1a6920-1261-422b-b0a8-39c1628285a0

https://doi.org/10.1109/SysEng.2017.8088282

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

2018-01-01

9781538634035

2017 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering, ISSE 2017 - Proceedings

ISSE 2017: 3rd Annual IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering, 2017-10-11 → 2017-10-13, Vienna, Austria

Institutional Repository

conference paper

© 2017 Elias Allegaert, Yves Lemmens, G. la Rocca