Design of Aircraft and Rotorcraft
Mission Statement
Our mission is to train students to become multi-disciplinary engineers that will practice and improve Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis and Optimisation in industry.
Philosophy
The chair uses the aircraft as its main study object. The aircraft is seen as a complex system that is often part of an even more complex transport system. Therefore it can only be successfully designed and improved when the capabilities and advances of the separate disciplines (i.e. aerodynamics, structures, propulsion, control, flight systems, etc.) are collected, balanced and integrated.
The chair considers concept/preliminary design studies, optimisation studies and exploitation questions its main research fields. These activities can be generally referred to as Systems Integration based on Aviation Technology. Both the objects/systems themselves and the methodologies to conceive them are the basis of our research. Our students should become the mediators between technical practice on the one hand and technical science on the other. Industrial practice requires the engineer to be more than a technical scientist. Therefore the chair of DAR does not prepare its students for purely scientific or specialist careers but mainly prepares for practical engineering functions in aviation and other branches of the industry. Of course, for those students with a more scientific interest, the chair offers possibilities to obtain a PhD as well. The DAR students will come in contact with the basic and applied research activities in the group. These technical scientific activities will help the student to train its mediation quality and to understand the opportunities but also the complexity and risks of innovation in technology and methodology.
Competences
The field of Design and Integration of Aircraft and Rotocraft covers the following areas:
- Flight mechanics, propulsion (including rocket propulsion), noise and pollutant emissions
- Aircraft exploitation, optimization techniques, air traffic management, safety and certification
- Concept and preliminary design studies
- Rotorcraft aerodynamics, flight mechanics, aero elasticity
- Knowledge Based Engineering
See also our Expertises
Research
DAR has strong researchers in the field of Wind Energy, Helicopter control, Multi-disciplinary optimisation and Parametric Modelling using Knowledge Based Engineering. E.g. DAR develops a modular Design and Engineering Engine (DEE) based on Knowledge Based Engineering principles. A DEE is defined as a set of analysis tools coupled to a full parametric KBE product model that can be used in the conceptual and preliminary design for multidisciplinary analysis and optimisation. The DAR DEE will be computer system based but emphasis is on the information being processed and generated by the DEE, not on the information technology. The different modules in the DEE will be developed with the different disciplinary groups of the Faculty. Multi-disciplinary parameterisation is a major issue in this respect.The nature of the group assures many spin-off projects in a variety of fields. Its activities in the area of Wind Energy are historically grown and form, together with related activities in the Wind Energy chair and the Composite Structures chair of the Faculty, the centre of competence in this field for the Netherlands.For more information, have a look at our research page.
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