Manufacturable Performance-Tailored Mesostructures for Hypersonics

Complex small structures, i.e., mesostructures, may be produced by additive manufacturing (AM) to reduce weight, integrate components and functionality, and tune effective material properties. The design of structural components for hypersonic structural applications based on mesostructures offers significant potential advantages, but design and optimization software does not currently exist for these structures. To address this need, NextGen Aeronautics has teamed with the University of California San Diego (UCSD) to develop and evaluate a design and optimization tool to integrate mesoscale structures into hypersonic vehicle structural systems based on a multiscale topology optimization approach based on work previously performed by Dr. Alicia Kim at UCSD. During the Phase I effort the NextGen will select a hypersonic structural system based on previous design studies to be redesigned using the proposed multiscale topology optimization approach with a focus on manufacturability using advanced additive manufacturing methods that have been recently developed. The performance improvements of the optimized structure will be characterized and the trade space will be defined. NextGen anticipates achieving a TRL of 3 in the Phase I effort for the proposed mesoscale design and optimization software and a TRL of 5 in a subsequent Phase II effort.