The next major update to AirCONICS is now live and can be downloaded as described here. Here is a summary of what is new in this release:
– a major new addition is a parametric airliner geometry – run transonic_airliner.py to see it, uncomment the appropriate lines at the end of the file to get it to generate geometries approximating a few existing aircraft types (B787-8, -9, A380 – shown above).
– another new parametric model is the one adding a pylon and a turbofan engine
(external surface model) to a given wing surface – see engine.py
– AirCONICStools.py now includes the function AddTEtoOpenAirfoil, which adds a trailing edge closure to an open airfoil curve with a finite trailing edge.
– Another new addition to AirCONICStools.py is a simple routine for assigining
basic material properties to an object (AssignMaterial). This will have an effect
on renderings.
– The liftingsurface object now has an additional attribute, the variable
TipRequired. When set to False, the wing is not closed off with a tip surface
(see, for example, the script nacelle_as_wrapped_around_wing_example.py – here there is no such thing as a wing tip – it would be inside the nacelle, so it is
best not to generate it at all).
– the wing_example_transonic_airliner.py example script now features more realistic airfoils and twist distribution, loosely based on the CRM (Common Research Model)
– a tailfin/tailplane example has been added (airlinertail.py)
– A bug has been fixed in the liftingsurface class, which caused an error in the
calculation of the leading edge shape with certain highly non-linear sweep angle
variations
– Other improvements throughout the code improving performance, functionality
and stability
