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An overwhelming abundance of innovative civil aeroplane concepts has been presented by the research community in recent decades. Their development has been motivated mainly by need for better operating energy, or in particular the fuel efficiency - the common objective variable for economic and environmental optimisation. This paper focuses on one common conceptual issue with the disruptive concepts which originates in remarkable divergence of the concept space in different directions away from the conventional Tube&Wing paradigm. As a consequence, it becomes increasingly difficult to make a meaningful comparison of any arbitrary pair of concepts by employing the conventional intuitions, definitions, or figures of merit. The objective of the paper is to elaborate a framework that could encompass the entire design space under a common conceptual umbrella. The method we employ relies on systems engineering principles of Function-to-Form mapping. Firstly, a comprehensive review of innovative concepts is provided, with emphasis on the problem of the apparent complexity of the design space arising from the conventional taxonomic intuitions. Then, the descriptive framework is presented, with relevant definitions of function, form and system architecture. First-order application of the framework to the conventional aeroplane design space implies that the Tube&Wing concept family can be represented as roughly one-to-one function-to-form mapping. By analysing the summarised pool of disruptive concepts in the same key, inference is made on existence of an extensive and continuous design space. Furthermore, and argument is presented for existence of the civil-aeroplane performance optimisation trend that aligns with parts of the design space moving away from one-to-one function-to-form mapping. In other words, parts of the design space moving towards the regions in which concepts map as many functions onto as few forms as possible. If extended to the entirety of the li, System Engineering

This paper presents a simple explanatory framework to analyse the diverse strategies proposed by the civil aviation sector in attempts to reconcile its growth tendencies with its impact on natural environment. Despite framing the industry as a single entity that has a problem to solve, it is better represented as a diverse set of actors, each responsible for various constituent systems at different phases of their respective life cycles. To elucidate this multi-actor pursuit of higher-level emergent objectives, the paper firstly presents an overview of different development scenarios dedicated to guide the industry towards sustainability. Given that the constituent systems tackled in such strategies strongly depend on each other, the sustainability objective relies on reconciling all the different agendas and contributions in unison, making them collectively compatible with the dynamics of the socio-economic and the natural world. To analyse the problem coherently, a basic description of an arbitrary system as a coarse-grained closed causal network is formulated. A categorisation for the model parameters is proposed to help define the system boundary and interaction with the environment unambiguously, dispensing with the need to know details of the model that represents the system at hand. This formalism was previously derived for preliminary sizing and performance estimation of aeroplane engines; by virtue of recursive nature of the coarse-graining process, the same formalism can be used to describe systems at any arbitrary levels, which enables a small system (in the current paper the system of interest being the propulsive system) to be integrated into a multi-level causal dependence framework. Then, the typical industry evolution scenarios are re-framed on the common ground of the causal network formalism. Subsequently, the framework is extended with a simple quantitative energy-based representation to formulate a qualitative case of how the scenarios could be f, System Engineering

This paper presents development of an innovative method for aeroplane system architecture design, based on the principles of causal networks. In light of the environmental crisis that the world faces, it is argued that the new design method should be motivated by sustainability values in the first place. This implies the necessity for a method that is evolvable, as well as for the design artefact to include an awareness of its contribution to dynamics of the higher-level systems within which it is embedded. To that end, the method is based on gradual and iterative development of an initial abstract object which represents relevant system functions over a designated life cycle. The architecture design procedure consists in evolving this abstract object by means of the pre-defined design rules towards a material architectures that satisfies multiple requirements and constraints for multiple actors. The design rules at hand represent a combination of quantitative methods such as first principles of physics and qualitative principles of systems engineering. In complement to system characteristics, rigorous book-keeping of matter and energy interfaces with the object’s surroundings is at the core of the method. To test the developed principles with the elementary method development at hand, a propulsive system architecture case study is elaborated. The case study represents a simple case of a short-medium range engine architecture designed to respond to operating requirements, whose resulting performance is book-kept and evaluated in a much broader context than the operation (in-flight performance), for which engines are commonly preliminary-designed., System Engineering

Until recently, research into the sustainable design of interactive systems has primarily focused on the direct material impact of a system, through improving its energy efficiency and optimizing its lifecycle. Yet the way a system is designed and marketed often has wider repercussions, such as rebound effects, and systemic change in practices. These effects are harder to assess (and to anticipate) than the direct physical impact of the construction and use of the system itself. Current tools are unable to account for the complexity of these effects: the underlying causal mechanisms, their multi-level nature, their different temporalities, and the variety of their consequences (environmental and societal). This is why we are seeking to develop a specific methodology and tool, inspired by systemic design and system dynamics. These are intended for decision-makers and designers of interactive systems within systems of systems (for example, in the fields of agricultural robotics or public transportation). In this paper, we present this modeling approach and our prototype tool through the example of a second-hand clothing sales platform.

This paper aims to facilitate getting acquainted with CubeSat preliminary design by presenting a review of open-source tools commonly used during project first steps, and a concrete example. The light but realistic preliminary design framework is based on a real 3U CubeSat use-case, the CREME project, relying on Nanospace and a package of selected Open-Source tools. This example should allow students and non-related field experts to fully grasp the concepts needed to achieve the basics of a typical preliminary design.