Virtual damping for vibroacoustic design of future launchers – ARIAN

This project is devoted to the prediction of damping for future air and land vehicles, and more specifically to bolted interfaces between composite structures for which friction between parts can lead to significant energy loss. The originality of the project consists in proposing a predictive methodology to calculate the vibration levels in these structures based on a virtual testing strategy which allows to predict damping in the low and medium frequency ranges while reducing or even eliminating real tests so as to diminish design and production costs. Robust design tools will also be integrated into the approach in order to account for uncertainty and evaluate the degree of confidence that can be accorded the virtual prototyping process.

Computational burden is an important challenge in virtual prototyping under uncertainty and will be addressed using well adapted and robust techniques in order to render this phase of the project compatible with realistic and competitive design delays.

In progress

The methods developed in the framework of this project can also be applied to other industrial sectors (aeronautics, rail, offshore,...).

In progress

“The ARIAN project deals with the numerical design preparation of the next generation of Launchers ARIANE6. For confidentiality reasons in such a sensitive sector, the industrial partner EADS-Astrium together with the involved partners is submitting the following proposal in French.”

The structural damping optimisation and mastering plays a fundamental role in the aerospace launchers design and specifications. In this case, the lack or even the absence of structural full size tests in the design and assembly stage leads often to overestimation of damping value. To improve the dynamic comfort of payloads, damping treatments are employed at the final stage of the launcher assemble. That increase the design cost through added unwanted mass. EADS-ASTRIUM developer and designers are seeking for an efficient way to handle the damping issues in launchers design at early stage of the developments.

This project is devoted to the damping prediction for the next generation of launchers ARIANE6. The project deals specifically with damping management of bolted links between composite structures. In such interfaces, friction between the different sub-elements induces a large amount of dissipated energy. Le project main originality is to propose a virtual damping prediction method and a virtual testing strategy associated to the vibroacoustic behavior of payloads in the low and mid-frequency range. This integrated virtual damping design strategy is supposed to be real testing free.
The robustness aspect of the virtual damping prediction will be also considered in this project. Precisely, the lack of knowledge associated to the virtual testing inputs will be taken into account in order to provide the margins associated to the design and to uncertainties.
Computation cost and time is a real challenge in virtual prototyping, specifically when uncertainties are to be considered. Reduction of time consumption will be a big issue the project will deal with. This will allow the virtual damping design and optimization realiste at the early stage of the vehicles design through specific model reduction and metamodeling strategies suited.