Developing advanced propulsion systems based on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and hydrogen fuel cells – not to mention autonomous flight technologies for the advanced air mobility segment – is both resource- and time-intensive.
But a nearly two-decade relationship between Honeywell Aerospace Technologies and US simulation software firm Ansys is helping bring next-generation technologies to market more efficiently. As a result of the partnership, Honeywell has shaved down its engine design cycle times by roughly 30%, the company says, and cut back on the materials used to construct test rigs.
Todd Giles, Honeywell’s chief technology officer, described to FlightGlobal earlier this month how the working relationship between the firms has evolved since 2006, when they first endeavoured to “move more and more down the simulation road” and ”design more with analysis and less with testing”.
At the outset, the long-term goal was leaning more on simulation “so we can get closer to the final answer before we commit to hardware”, Giles says. The result has been lower development costs and less time for products to reach the market.
“That was the initial thought, many years ago: How do I leverage these tools to get us closer to the real answer, so that I’m less dependent on testing and hardware? Which, obviously, takes time,” he continues. ”You have to wait for hardware, design rigs, assemble the hardware, work out bugs and test if you got the wrong answer.”
The partnership between Honeywell and Pennsylvania-based Ansys has also allowed Honeywell to be “less dependent on home-grown tools and to partner with somebody that could use these things in a production environment and maintain them”.
Simulation-aided engineering has allowed for progressively faster development cycles, Giles says, accelerating Honeywell’s combustion designs as well as innovations surrounding pollution reduction and autonomous flight.
Giles emphasises that, from a safety standpoint, simulations do not serve as a stand-in for testing aerospace components against real-world variables.
“You can’t model every interaction yet – you can try, but the real world is the real world,” he says. “Trying to simulate every interaction across a complex system can be daunting. What we try to strike is the balance… between how much I can simulate, how accurate I can be, and then you go to testing.”
“We’re always going to prove the product does what it says it’s going to do and is safe and reliable,” he adds.
PUSHING FURTHER
Simulation-aided engineering also saves on materials and energy usage by avoiding multiple rig build-ups and tear-downs.
“I’m not using all the energy to produce the parts in my supply base,” Giles says. ”I don’t have to figure out how to recycle things that are difficult to recycle. I don’t just scrap them… If I’m doing less testing, I’m burning less fuel in the test cell. I’m getting close to that answer in a digital environment.”
Advancements in artificial intelligence stand to streamline engineering processes further, providing more optimised and accurate results.
“From the Honeywell standpoint, the most near-term activity that we’re working on is code development, verification and validation for software,” Giles says. “Honeywell is working on a ton of research around autonomy and how we leverage AI to solve some of the autonomy equations that we see coming forward.”
Honeywell’s overarching goal is to cut pollution – both from developmental programmes and aircraft operations – and to “meet all future regulations”, he says. “Whether it’s with SAF or hydrogen, we need to bring down that use of fossil fuel; we need to be more efficient with that use of fossil fuel as it stands today. Beyond carbon, we need to make sure that we’re not putting other pollutants into the air. There is a lot we can do to with the tools we leverage from Ansys to design for those future regulations and the future commitments to the industry.”
