Collaborative Aircraft Engine Preliminary Design using a Virtual Engine Platform, Part A: Architecture and Methodology

As in many other industries, the sector of aircraft engines and gas turbines is also undergoing a change towards digitalization. The intention is to make digital technologies applicable over the entire life cycle of the product and thus improve planning, design, construction, assembly, operation, and maintenance. Intelligent digitalization technologies like the digital thread or digital twin will drastically change engineering and construction processes. Consequently, the preliminary aircraft engine design must also be embedded into the context of digitalization. As part of the projects PEGASUS and PERFECT, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has started the development of the virtual engine platform GTlab (Gas Turbine Laboratory). Its modular architecture ensures a high degree of usability, expandability, and flexibility for the design and assessment of innovative next generation engine and gas turbine concepts. The purpose of this paper is to present the most important aspects of the GTlab framework and how they contribute to meet the requirements of preliminary aircraft engine design in the context of digitalization. A central topic is the digital representation of the engine system, which is realized by a central data model approach. This includes the geometric description of all engine components, as well as additional data such as thermodynamics, aerodynamics, structural characteristics and mass breakdown. In addition, the central data model enables an efficient management of the intricate data flow and the extensive amount of data transferred between the different disciplines and fidelity levels during the aircraft engine design. Further functionalities of the GTlab framework include the automated generation of 3-D geometries by means of a CAD kernel interface, the acquisition of material data via a material database and a standardized gas model interface. Besides the core functionalities, GTlab includes three major modules for the preliminary aircraft engine design from 0-D-performance up to 3-D. The detailed collaborative predesign proces by means of the framework is presented in part B, exemplary for a ultra high bypass turbofan suited to a middle of the market aircraft configuration.