Categories: Weight, Estimation
State: ✔️
WeightConventional module can make estimation of the following masses for conventional aircraft:
- Maximum Take-Off Mass
- Operating Empty Mass
- Zero fuel mass
It also calculates other values which are required to calculate those masses, e.g.:
- Number of abreast
- Number of passenger
- Number of cabin crew member
- Wing loading
Example of workflow with the WeightConventional module:
graph LR;
CPACSCreator-->WeightConventional;
WeightConventional-->PyTornado;
WeightConventional takes as input a CPACS file, it use only the geometry of the aircraft to make estimations.
To estimate the MTOM, the WeightConventional module uses the following value (extracted form the CPACS geometry) from a database of conventional aircraft, mostly based on [2].
- Wing area
- Wing Span
- Fuselage length
- Fuselage width
K-nearest neighbors regression from scikit-learn is used to predict the MTOM of a "new" aircraft. From this MTOM, it deduce other value from empirical relations.
From the fuselage geometry, it estimate the cabin size and a possible seat disposition to estimate the number of passenger.
WeightConventional outputs a CPACS file with the calculated masses. It also produce some markdown files in the result folder with more detail information and a figure which shows the MTOM prediction.
WeightConventional is a native CEASIOMpy module, hence it is available and installed by default. To run it, you just have to be sure that you are in the CEASIOMpy Conda environment.
WeightConventional make a lot of assumption and use some empirical relationship, results may differ a lot from the reality.
WeightConventional is based on interpolation base on existing aircraft, it will not be able to take into account if the aircraft you design uses new technologies or materials.
[1] Piccini, S.: A Weight and Balance evaluation software for conventional and unconventional aircraft design. Master Thesis (2019). pdf
[2] Jenkinson, L., Simpkin, P., Rhodes , D.: Civil Jet Aircraft Design. Data Set. link