Current design methods using a deterministic approach are highly conservative and may limit structural performance and efficiency. The incorporation of probabilistic analysis and design methods are likely to improve the performance of aerospace vehicles using advanced lightweight metallic and composite materials while improving the current levels of vehicle safety. Recent advances in probabilistic analysis and design methodologies, coupled with the latest computer systems, will enable the practical application of these new tools for the design of aerospace structures. These probabilistic analysis and design methodologies must rely upon the state of art in material science, failure mechanisms, probability theory, information science, and statistics. Through these methods, vehicle design can be optimized to greatly improve damage tolerance with minimal effect on other design considerations.
The Structural Analysis and Health Assessment (SA&HA) team achieves improved structural analysis and design methods by:
- Developing methodologies to perform cost- and time-efficient parametric studies on candidate vehicle designs
– Low-fidelity, high-level conceptual design studies
– High-fidelity, detailed design studies
– Probabilistic analysis and design studies
- Providing highly responsive engineering support for agency’s space vehicle development efforts
- Develop probabilistic design methodology to increase performance of space vehicles while assuring vehicle safety
- Develop in-house expertise in launch vehicle design practices and use of State of the Art design tools
- Strengthen the agency’s ability to perform analytical studies required for aerospace vehicle development
If you would like more information on these topics, go to the link below, which is NASA’s technical report server: http://data.nasa.gov/nasa-technical-reports-server/
