CYFFD Parameterization Method for Cylindrical Components of Aircrafts

This paper proposes a parameterization method using cylindrical coordinates based free-form deformation(CYFFD) technique by introducing a coordinate transformation method and a virtual lattice method. The method is suitable for axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric cylindrical applications. CYFFD is able to deform radially and circumferentially and to maintain first order and curvature continuity across frame border. First, the coordinate transformation step helps capture geometrical characteristics of cylindrical objects to conduct radial and circumferential deformation. Due to the need of delicate shape design, FFD lattice need be set up closely around cylinder-like objects and this will cause the boundary of FFD frame to intersect with the objects, which lead to derivative discontinuity at the intersection. The virtual lattice method is introduced to reuse some control points as virtual ones so that first order and curvature continuity can be preserved. A cylinder deformation example compares the capability of CYFFD with that of conventional FFD for radial and circumferential deformation and keeping derivative continuity. An airplane nose example shows the possibility to use CYFFD and NFFD together for complex shape. A nacelle deformation example and fitting example show that CYFFD is valuable for non-axisymmetric cylindrical objects with complex shapes. The optimization example on cylinder nose shape indicates that CYFFD can give good optimization results and it is valuable for parameterizing cylinder-like objects.