Structural sizing and mass estimation of transport aircraft wings with distributed, hydrogen, and electric propulsions

Abstract Current literature offers limited mass estimation methodologies and their application in the conceptual or preliminary design stages of moderate to high aspect ratio wings with electric, hydrogen or distributed propulsions. This study presents the development and application of a quasi-analytical wing mass estimation method to address this limitation. The proposed method is distinguished from the existing mass estimation methods by its expanded realistic load cases, sensitivity to several design parameters, improved accuracy with short computational time and capabilities for future applications. To achieve these features, new geometric models are introduced; 483 load cases including symmetric manoeuvre, rolling, and combined cases are covered following airworthiness requirements; the structural elements are idealised and sized with strength and buckling criteria; existing methods are evaluated and integrated cautiously for secondary structures and non-optimum masses. A computation time of 0.1s is accomplished for one load case. The developed method achieved the highest accuracy with an average error of -2.2% and a standard error of 1.8% for wing mass estimates compared with six existing methods, benchmarked against thirteen wings of different aircraft categories. The effects of engine numbers with dual- to 16-engine setups and the dry wing concepts on the wing mass are investigated. The optimised number of engines and their locations decreased the wing mass of the high aspect ratio wing significantly. In contrast, the dry wing design increased the wing masses of all baseline aircraft. The future applications and improvements of the presented method in novel configurations and multidisciplinary designed optimisation studies are explained.