Vision, Objectives and Research Activities

Virtual prototyping (VP) is a key technology for environment-friendly and cost-effective design in the aircraft industry. However, the underlying analysis and simulation tools are currently applied with a unique set of input data and model variables, although realistic operating conditions are a superposition of numerous uncertainties under which the industrial products operate (uncertainties on operational conditions, on geometries resulting from manufacturing tolerances, numerical error sources and uncertain physical model parameters). Major new developments in this new scientific area of Uncertainty Management and Quantification (UM and UQ) and Robust Design Methods (RDMs) are needed to bridge the gap towards industrial readiness. The UMRIDA project, which stands for Uncertainty Management for Robust Industrial Design in Aeronautics, addresses these objectives by performing major research in both UQ and RDM and developing methods to handle a large number of simultaneous uncertainties including generalized geometrical uncertainties within a quantifiable objective of a turn-around time acceptable for industrial readiness. To assess the quantifiable objective, the developed methods are applied to a unique database with prescribed uncertainties build from industrial challenges provided by the project partners.