Airbus to reduce lead times in numerical analysis activities for aircraft design

• New software to help reduce lead time in aircraft design processes by up to 10%

19 JUNE 2013 PRESS RELEASE


Airbus is using new software to help engineers in their numerical analyses activities to reduce design lead time and cost of complex engineering projects. Deployment of this software, called MACROS, is being accelerated throughout Airbus. The tool will be used in various areas of the aircraft development and has successfully demonstrated lead time reductions of Airbus engineering activities.

MACROS was developed by DATADVANCE, a joint venture company between EADS and Russian partners. Together with the Russian Academy of Science they have been able to bring this high level of applied mathematics technology for numerical problem solving optimization and data analysis into a software compatible with industrial processes.

Charles Champion, EVP Head of Engineering said: “Numerical models are already used in all areas of engineering. Surrogate modeling and optimization are must-have in the set of numerical tools accessible to our engineers to build tomorrow’s aircraft, and until now they were restricted to a limited number of specialists. This software offers for the first time the ability to deploy these technologies at large scale and in a large variety of domains, for the benefit of our current and future aircraft.”

“We are proud of the confidence shown by Airbus in our solutions”; says Sergey Morozov, CTO of DATADVANCE. This cooperation with Airbus has enabled us to continuously improve MACROS both with respect to the performance of our algorithms and the evolution of the embedded intelligent layer allowing engineers to access and use the advanced algorithms.”

Airbus specialists from the departments of flight physics, structures, systems and future projects have been validating and assessing the tool on realistic industrial applications for several years. On some partial design processes, Airbus and DATADVANCE have demonstrated a reduction in lead time by a factor 10 to 20 in the numerical analysis. Overall, it is expected that this could lead to the reduction of up to 10% of lead time and cost in several areas of the aircraft design process.

Airbus is a leading aircraft manufacturer with the most modern and comprehensive family of airliners on the market, ranging in capacity from 100 to more than 500 seats. Airbus champions innovative technologies and offers some of the world’s most fuel efficient and quiet aircraft. Airbus has achieved more than 7,800 deliveries since the first Airbus aircraft entered service. Headquartered in Toulouse, France, Airbus is an EADS company.