MULTIDISCIPLINARY CONCEPTUAL AND STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF A NEW GENERATION OF AIRCRAFT OVERHEAD STOWAGE COMPARTMENT

Abstract New developments of technical systems are always a very challenging task. This is particularly true for the aviation industries, where extreme lightweight design meets manifold design requirements. Especially the interior structure of an aircraft, which is typically part of a multidisciplinary mechatronical system nowadays, challenges the designer by the multitude of design parameters and influence factors. And on top of it, the cabin has to be ergonomic and comfortable with a striking appearance. These complex requirements do not allow a standard domain-specific design optimization without a basic multidisciplinary design methodology. This article outlines the systematic approach used to develop a new generation of aircraft overhead stowage compartment. The discussed overhead stowage compartment is movable. The innovative character and the challenge of the presented movable overhead stowage compartment is mainly driven by the removal of the classic housing, a significant stowage enlargement that implies the increase of the payload and demands for a supporting actuator for opening and closing, improved ergonomics in terms of loading and presence in the cabin and a simple structure that meets all mechanical needs at the same time with a reduced mass related to comparable existing solutions. The performed design procedure is based on the state of the art methods of engineering design for mechatronical systems and its main design stages, system design, domain-specific design and system integration. The focus of the present work is on the system design in the early design stage and on the structural design within the domain-specific design. It is presented how the performed systematic approach generates novel design concepts and how a concept develops until the prototype stage. The work outlines the step-by-step development of the multidisciplinary design concept by analyzing, abstracting and solving the design task on the basis of an introduced evaluation scheme. Furthermore, the integration of the structural design in the domain-specific design phase is explicated and the working steps of the structural design are demonstrated by the considered overhead stowage compartment. Finally, the integration of the domain-specific solutions to the overall multidisciplinary solution of the aircraft overhead stowage compartment is described and the results of the successful application of the systematic design approach are presented. The discussed development project was a cooperation of the Institute of Constructional Lightweight Design at the Johannes Kepler University Linz with partners from aviation industries and ended recently with a patent application. The project was funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)