Licentiatavhandling Linköping : Linköping University. Department of Management and Engineering, 2014

With the ever growing complexity of aircrafts, new tools and eventually methods to use these tools are needed in aircraft conceptual design. To reduce the development cost, an enhancement in the conceptual design is needed. This thesis presents a knowledge-based aircraft geometry design tool RAPID and the methodology applied in realizing the design. The parameters used to create a geometry need to be exchange between different tools. This is achieved by using a centralized database or onedata concept. One-database will enable creating a less number of cross connections between different tools to exchange data with one another. Different types of aircraft configurations can be obtained with less effort. As RAPID is developed based on relational design, any changes made to the geometric model will update automatically. The geometry model is carefully defined to carry over to the preliminary design. The validation of RAPID is done by implementing it in different aircraft design courses at Linköping University. In the aircraft project course, RAPID was effectively used and new features were added to the obtained desired design. Knowledge-base is used to realize the design performance for the geometry with an integrated database approach for a multidisciplinary aircraft conceptual design.