Comprehensive Analysis Tool for Emerging Vertical Lift Air Vehicles

ATA Engineering and Continuum Dynamics, Inc., propose a Phase I SBIR project to develop a comprehensive analysis framework for accurately modeling aerodynamic and aeroelastic characteristics of electric, traditional, and hybrid multirotor vertical lift air vehicles. The team will integrate modular structural dynamics, aerodynamics, rotor dynamics, electrification, and control system solvers into an efficient framework for solving coupled multiphysics aerodynamic response, trim, and stability problems. The framework will allow solvers to be easily swapped to achieve different degrees of fidelity across the design process. For example, the aerodynamics solver can be exchanged from a simple lifting-line aerodynamics model to the multirotor capabilities of CHARM to a full computational fluid dynamics solver. The rotor dynamics, electrification, and control system solvers are extensible, parameterizable, and based on a readily available multiphysics modeling technology. Together, these capabilities directly support situations where advanced modeling parameters may not be known and lower-fidelity models are preferred. Phase I effort will focus on developing an optimal integration approach, applying the coupled electric multirotor analysis capability to a representative eVTOL concept vehicle, and demonstrating the aerodynamic trim and stability solvers. The variable-fidelity approach will be evaluated by comparing the stability results obtained using different aerodynamic solvers.