Aircraft Design Problem Implementation under the Common Object Request Broker Architecture

The paper descr ibes a compo nent-based compu tationa l envir onment for imple menting aircr aft desig n probl ems. The envir onment is condu cive to takin g advanta ge of the paral lelisms inher ent in the probl em and distr ibute the indiv idual disci plines on machi nes most appro priate to their needs while insul ating the developer and the user from the compl exity of the underly ing commu nications const ructs. Commo n Objec t Reque st Broke r Archi tecture and Java progr amming langu age are used to encap sulate disci pline codes as “obje cts”. An inter face file ident ifies all the infor mation neede d by a user of the objec t. Legac y codes are “wrap ped” using Java’ s nativ e inter face metho dology and each such code is calle d from a modul e which impleme nts the servi ces of the objec t. A serve r progr am ties the imple mentation to the inter face. Data and file manageme nt are accom plished using Java’ s datab ase connecti vity to acces s a comme rcial relat ional datab ase manag ement syste m. Java' s Beans Devel opment Kit is used to imple ment the disci plines and sub-t asks as reusable compo nents that provi de a graph ical inter face for user input as well as facil itate inter active and visua l objec t conne ctivity and probl em execu tion progr ess monit oring. This appro ach has been used to implement a simpl e aircr aft desig n optimizat ion probl em, the analy sis part of a large scale high speed civil trans port desig n optim ization probl em, and a stand alone aerod ynamic optim izer.