Abstract

Assessing advanced technologies and novel configurations in the conceptual design phase presents a challenge, since the lower-fidelity models that have been traditionally used rely heavily on empiricism and past experience. Typically, these low fidelity models do not capture the physics necessary to model advanced technologies, nor their effects on the aircraft system. Further, a comprehensive system-level approach is essential when considering aircraft environmental impact, since design decisions made to reduce environmental impact in one metric can have dramatic consequences in other domains. This talk outlines some of the challenges in achieving a high-fidelity, physics-based conceptual design capability, and discusses our recent and ongoing work in multifidelity modeling and reduced-order modeling.

Biography

Karen Willcox is Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics in the Aerospace Computational Design Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining the faculty at MIT, she worked at Boeing Phantom Works with the Blended-Wing-Body group. Her research and teaching interests lie in computational simulation and optimization of engineering systems. Her two major research focuses are in model reduction for large-scale systems with applications in unsteady aerodynamics, uncertainty quantification, and variable-fidelity design methods, and in aircraft system design and optimization with particular emphasis on environmental factors in conceptual design.