Mass Properties Calculation and Fuel Analysis in the Conceptual Design of Uninhabited Air Vehicles

The determination of an aircraft’s mass properties is critical during its conceptual design phase. Obtaining reliable mass property information early in the design of an aircraft can prevent design mistakes that can be extremely costly further along in the development process. In this thesis, several methods are presented in order to automatically calculate the mass properties of aircraft structural components and fuel stored in tanks. The first method set forth calculates the mass properties of homogenous solids represented by polyhedral surface geometry. A newly developed method for calculating the mass properties of thin shell objects, given the same type of geometric representation, is derived and explained. A methodology for characterizing the mass properties of fuel in tanks has also been developed. While the concepts therein are not completely original, the synthesis of past research from diverse sources has yielded a new comprehensive approach to fuel mass property analysis during conceptual design. All three of these methods apply to polyhedral geometry, which in many cases is used to approximate