3307. Next Generation – Aircraft Product Development Weight Control Tools for Hydraulic Power System

Paper

Abstract

Boeing?s Sonic Cruiser was identified as a design challenge from the beginning. New materials, technologies, and systems architectures were needed to meet the very challenging performance requirements set by the program. The hydraulic system would require a new architecture utilizing new technologies. Weight engineers would need a design and analysis tool to quickly develop a configuration and perform weight assessments. Weight engineering needed a flexible tool with the sensitivity and adaptability to quickly guide the configuration.
Boeing?s previous efforts led to work on a new weight estimation tool for hydraulic systems and the work continued on to the Sonic Cruiser. Support from the mechanical hydraulics systems organization was solicited to develop a rules-based method incorporating their existing tools and processes. Integration with their tools and processes also made discussions with them more productive because the focus could be on the design and architecture, not on the weight estimation tool. Excel and Visual Basic were used to keep the tool flexible and allowed for continuous incorporation of new requirements and capabilities as needed.
The benefits of the new tool include reduced analysis cycle time and isolation of different aspects of the hydraulic systems for trade studies. Hydraulic components and tubing are distributed in three-dimensional space using design-based rules ? in seconds ? replacing a non-repeatable process, previously requiring days to execute. Weight engineers can now perform and support trade studies between architectures, components, materials, pressures, and geometry. When all data are available, a full weight analysis, previously taking two to three days can now be executed in under an hour!
This paper describes this weight estimation process and tool.