Design Automation of Air Intake Lips on an Aircraft : How to implement design automation for air intake lips in a later design concept phase

Sammanfattning: Air intakes are complex components that are critical for the propulsion of the aircraft. The design has to consider requirements from several different departments, often contradictory. Additionally, the air intakes need to cooperate with other critical components. This makes testing of the models crucial, hence time-demanding. Design automation is a growing field which aims at minimizing repetitive work during product concept development. To follow the increasing digitalization, further investigations of design automation applied on air intakes are significant.  The application Imagine and Shape in 3D Experience CATIA handles subdivided surfaces. These surfaces are both flexible and provide a high order of continuity, which is often desired. While design automation in CATIA is well investigated, design automation in Imagine and Shape is not.  Knowledge based engineering techniques are often used to implement design automation. The methodology MOKA is frequently used when developing knowledge based engineering applications. This master thesis has followed MOKA in combination with Scrum.  The master thesis has resulted in a method to allow automation in Imagine and Shape by linking mesh nodes on subdivided surfaces to reference points that are parameterized. Further, a method for generating air intake configurations as well as the integration with a fuselage has been developed. The method includes wireframe models in Generative Shape Design, subdivided surfaces in Imagine and Shape, scripts in EKL as well as UserForm and scripts in VBA. Additionally, the order of continuity for an integration between air intakes and fuselage has been analyzed using tools in 3D Experience CATIA.  A conclusion drawn is that the method for generating air intakes cannot be completely automated. Instantiation and dimension of components can be automated, but manual work is required when using tools in Imagine and Shape during the integration between the components and the fuselage.Two methods for linking mesh nodes to reference points have been identified, one manual and one semi-automatic. The automatic method saves time and mouse clicks by utilizing VBA scripts. Further, the achieved order of continuity of an integration between subdivided surfaces depends on the individual components.