Progressive Design – Progressive Analysis

The HyperSizer Progressive Design Process consists of three activities. All three activities can interact with each other throughout design maturation. HyperSizer provides unique automation and integration capabilities to each of these design activities.

A funneling process performed in stages to target an optimum design. Innovative “back to the drawing board” concepts are proposed, evaluated, and filtered out for the next stage of the design maturation process.

An incremental process of including more computationally demanding analysis solutions starting with damage initiation, tracking the progression of failure, and ending with the resulting residual strength at ultimate failure.

An incremental process of including more design detail, such as bonded and bolted joints, ply drop-offs, etc. for both optimization and analysis.

The figure below describes four progressive maturity levels for analysis and design optimization. Each of these correspond to a level of computational effort rather than a level of fidelity, although these often coincide. The intent is to pair the analysis and design levels to achieve the best efficiency of accuracy and optimization throughput. Overall accuracy is based on the analysis accuracy of each isolated failure prediction, as well as the breadth of failure modes included. HyperSizer provides the flexibility to switch between levels (blue dashed line) for obtaining the most revealing and relevant time appropriate results.

The figure below identifies how HyperSizer’s four levels of extensive analyses and progressive optimization fit into the traditional phases of the aerospace engineering design process of conceptual, preliminary, and final design. The numbers represent a full fledged effort to extensively explore the design space. Throughout all levels, the quality of engineering knowledge and experience dramatically improves the results. The proportion of interactive user hours is higher in the earlier design phases where time is spent interpreting results and steering the optimization.