Object-oriented computational model building of aircraft flight dynamics and systems

For economic reasons aircraft performance is pushed towards its physical limitations. As far as flight control is concerned, a thorough investigation of flight system dynamics is required, i.e., covering the inter action between flight dynamics (including airframe structural flexibility) and flight systems (consisting of actuators/motivators and controls). Computational handling of this interaction is best taken into account if a comprehensive simulation model is available within a common computer processable description. This paper describes the computational model building of such a multidisciplinary non-linear aircraft simulation model for the design and validation of flight control systems. The approach has been validated in several projects and is demonstrated in this contribution by various views on a common example. The object-oriented, equation-based software package Dymola is used as the modelling environment. (C) Elsevier, Paris.