Development of a Software for Aircraft Preliminary Design and Analysis

The present paper deals with the description of a software called ADAS (Aircraft Design and Analysis Software) that has been developed at DIAS (Dep. of Aerospace Eng.) by the authors during the last 5 years. The paper gives an overview of all main modules and used procedures and approaches that have been built and implemented in the software. ADAS code has been originally intended as an educational tool, but after many improvements carried out during the past years, can be used as a research tool and it can be of some relevance also for some industrial applications. All the aerodynamic characteristics used for stability, control and aircraft performances calculations are estimated mainly through semiempirical laws integrated with more sophisticated approaches like the use of aerodynamic tools like Multhopp or Weissinger to estimate wing lift spanwise distribution. The software is extremely user-friendly and can represent a valid teaching tool for aircraft design courses.