An Integrated Approach for the Multidisciplinary Design of Optimum Rotorcraft Operations

This work focuses on the development and application of a generic methodology targeting the design of optimum rotorcraft operations in terms of fuel burn, gaseous emissions, and ground noise impact. An integrated tool capable of estimating the performance and emitted noise of any defined rotorcraft configuration within any designated mission has been deployed. A comprehensive and cost-effective optimization strategy has been structured. The methodology has been applied to two generic, baseline missions representative of current rotorcraft operations. Optimally designed operations for fuel burn, gaseous emissions, and ground noise impact have been obtained. A comparative evaluation has been waged between the acquired optimum designs. The respective trade-off arising from the incorporation of flight paths optimized for different objectives has been quantified. Pareto front derived models for fuel burn and emitted noise have been structured for each mission. The Pareto models have been subsequently deployed for the design of operations optimized in a multidisciplinary manner. The results have shown that the proposed methodology is promising with regards to achieving simultaneous reduction in fuel burn, gaseous emissions, and ground noise impact for any defined mission. The obtainable reductions are found to be dependent on the designated mission. Finally, the potential to design optimum operations in a multidisciplinary fashion using only a single design criterion is demonstrated.