Thermal Overall Integrated Conception of Aircraft (TOICA)

Research Project, 2013 – 2016

Thermal behaviour of aircraft has recently become a crucial subject due to many factors: increasing number of complex systems required by modern, more electric, commercial aircraft, the introduction of hotter engines with higher by-pass ratios, the increased use of composite material in aircraft structures, or the confinement of highly dissipative equipment and systems in smaller areas to earn space for passengers and cargo.

New advanced techniques to manage the aircraft thermal behaviour at the very early stages of development are essential to take the right configuration decisions while meeting market demands. To work efficiently and on emerging innovative solutions, it is essential to perform thermal management at the global aircraft level. Today, thermal studies are performed for sizing and risk analyses.

The TOICA project intends to radically change the way thermal studies are performed within aircraft design processes. It will create and manage a thermal aircraft architecture which today does not exist. This will be shared in the extended enterprise with design partners through a collaborative environment supporting new advanced capabilities developed by the project, namely the architect cockpit, which will allow the architects and experts to monitor the thermal assessment of an aircraft and to perform trade-off studies. Super integration will support a holistic view of the aircraft and allow traditional design views and the related simulation cascade to be challenged.

Six use cases illustrating new thermal strategies will demonstrate the benefits of the TOICA approach on realistic aircraft configurations. Plateaus will be organised with architects for the definition, selection and evaluation of thermally optimised aircraft configurations. These plateaus will drumbeat the project. In parallel, technology readiness evaluations will assess the maturity of the developed technologies and support the deployment and exploitation of the TOICA results.