SBIR-STTR Award

The main objective of this SBIR effort is two-fold. First, to develop a digital twin (DT) of an aircraft structure and its composite components capable of accurate aging predictions for any mission-specific loading and environmental variability, in a manner that enables the assessment of the structural airworthiness of the aircraft and its composite components from a damage tolerance perspective. Second, to identify potential multiphysics trade-offs to enable accelerated testing. To this end, the detailed technical objectives for Phase I are to: - Extend the multiphysics, data-driven modeling (MDD) approach developed at US-NRL to account for hygro-thermal coupling effects. - Incorporate MDD in the nonparametric probabilistic method (NPM) for modeling and quantifying model-form uncertainty, and apply the resulting MDD/NPM framework to data-enrich a finite element model of an aircraft structure and transform it into a DT. - Demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed MDD/NPM framework for predicting the structural airworthiness of an aircraft composite component from a damage tolerance perspective. - Extend MDD to the multiscale setting. - Investigate the influence of the choice of a witness component and its instrumentation on the trustworthiness of the DT for predicting damage effects in a composite component of interest.

Benefit:
The main anticipated outcome of this SBIR project is a set of minimally intrusive, reusable software modules constituting a data-driven computational framework that enables: - The prediction of material aging. - The design of a new/replacement composite component or its repair. - The assessment of the airworthiness of such a component during its lifetime. - The assessment of its life extension. The primary market of these modules in the DoD and private sectors is that of design and testing for performance and/or fatigue and structural integrity of numerous aerospace, automotive, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering systems with structural components made of composite materials. These include, to name only a few: military and commercial aircraft; motorsport where composite components now account, for example, for up to 85% of today's Formula 1 cars but only roughly 20% of their weight; advanced composite construction products that are more sustainable and cost-effective than conventional counterparts; and military and commercial marine vessels where components and structures made of composite materials are exposed to high stresses attributable to the action of wind, waves, and tides. In all of these and other applications where structural fatigue damage is an important concern, the software modules to be developed in this SBIR effort will enable: - An increased confidence in the numerical prediction of material aging. - The design of composite structural components that satisfy challenging requirements for resistance to hostile environments, strength, and weight. - Their qualification and certification. - Their condition-based maintenance. - The assessment of their structural integrity during their lifetime. - Their life extension.

Keywords:
AERO Suite, AERO Suite, Digital twin, multiphysics damage prediction, data-enriched modeling, model updating, Composites, Data-Driven Modeling, structural airworthiness

The main objective of this SBIR effort is two-fold. First, to develop a digital twin of an aircraft structure and its composite components capable of accurate aging predictions for any mission-specific loading and environmental variability, in a manner that enables the assessment of the structural airworthiness of the aircraft and its composite components from a damage tolerance perspective. Second, to identify potential multiphysics trade-offs to enable accelerated testing. To this end, the detailed technical objectives for Phase II are to: Extend the multiphysics MDD (multiphysics data-driven modeling approach) developed during Phase I to enable the increased fidelity associated with capturing aging-induced damage. Generalize the MDD -NPM (nonparametric probabilistic method for model-form uncertainty (MFU)) computational framework developed in Phase I to an arbitrary number of levels (coupon, element, subcomponent, component, aircraft), to minimize MFU and test uncertainty introduced at each level, thereby leading to the construction of a robust digital twin instance of a structural system that can replace the current role of the building block approach (BBA) for qualification and sustainment operations. Validate this multiphysics framework using laboratory tests that simulate the in-service loading environment for different blocks of the BBA. Demonstrate that the MDD-NPM framework is functional with actual data from multiaxial testing at the coupon, subcomponent, and component levels. Equip the MDD-NPM computational framework with a fast approach for identifying potential multiphysics trade-offs to enable accelerated testing. Develop ASLM (aircraft structural life management), a set of minimally intrusive software modules for this computational framework and a universal interface between this software end product and third-party CFD, FEA, and coupled CFD-FEA solvers to ease the commercialization of ASLM.

Benefit:
The main objective of this SBIR effort is two-fold. First, to develop a digital twin of an aircraft structure and its composite components capable of accurate aging predictions for any mission-specific loading and environmental variability, in a manner that enables the assessment of the structural airworthiness of the aircraft and its composite components from a damage tolerance perspective. Second, to identify potential multiphysics trade-offs to enable accelerated testing. To this end, the detailed technical objectives for Phase II are to: Extend the MDD (multiphysics data-driven modeling approach) developed during Phase I to enable the increased fidelity associated with capturing aging-induced damage. Generalize the MDD -NPM (nonparametric probabilistic method for model-form uncertainty (MFU)) computational framework developed in Phase I to an arbitrary number of levels (coupon, element, subcomponent, component, aircraft), to minimize MFU and test uncertainty introduced at each level, thereby leading to the construction of a robust digital twin instance of a structural system that can replace the current role of the building block approach (BBA) for qualification and sustainment operations. Validate this multiphysics framework using laboratory tests that simulate the in-service loading environment for different blocks of the BBA. Demonstrate that the MDD-NPM framework is functional with actual data from multiaxial testing at the coupon, subcomponent, and component levels. Equip the MDD-NPM computational framework with a fast approach for identifying potential multiphysics trade-offs to enable accelerated testing. Develop ASLM (aircraft structural life management), a set of minimally intrusive software modules for this computational framework and a universal interface between this software end product and third-party CFD, FEA, and coupled CFD-FEA solvers to ease the commercialization of ASLM.

Keywords:
structural airworthiness, Data-Driven Modeling, Digital twin, multiphysics damage prediction, data-enriched modeling, Composites, model updating, AERO Suite