An Overview of NASA'S Integrated Design and Engineering Analysis (IDEA) Environment

Jeffrey Robinson
2011 17th AIAA International Space Planes and Hypersonic Systems and Technologies Conference   unpublished
Historically, the design of subsonic and supersonic aircraft has been divided into separate technical disciplines (such as propulsion, aerodynamics and structures) each of which performs their design and analysis in relative isolation from others. This is possible in most cases either because the amount of interdisciplinary coupling is minimal or because the interactions can be treated as linear. The design of hypersonic airbreathing vehicles, like NASA's X-43, is quite the opposite. Such
more » ... s are dominated by strong non-linear interactions between disciplines. The design of these systems demands that a multi-disciplinary approach be taken. Furthermore, increased analytical fidelity at the conceptual design phase is highly desirable as many of the non-linearities are not captured by lower fidelity tools. Only when these systems are designed from a true multi-disciplinary perspective can the real performance benefits be achieved and complete vehicle systems be fielded. Toward this end, the Vehicle Analysis Branch at NASA Langley Research Center has been developing the Integrated Design & Engineering Analysis (IDEA) Environment. IDEA is a collaborative environment for parametrically modeling conceptual and preliminary launch vehicle configurations using the Adaptive Modeling Language (AML) as the underlying framework. The environment integrates geometry, configuration, propulsion, aerodynamics, aerothermodynamics, trajectory, closure and structural analysis into a generative, parametric, unified computational model where data is shared seamlessly between the different disciplines. Plans are also in place to incorporate life cycle analysis tools into the environment which will estimate vehicle operability, reliability and cost. IDEA is currently being funded by NASA's Hypersonics Project, a part of the Fundamental Aeronautics Program within the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate. The environment is currently focused around a two-stage-to-orbit configuration with a turbine based combined cycle (TBCC) first stage and reusable rocket second stage. This paper provides an overview of the development of the IDEA environment, a description of the current status and detail of future plans.
doi:10.2514/6.2011-2392 fatcat:4whojyznzrfxjcjrncu534spj4