Regional jet retrofitting through multidisciplinary aircraft design

Multidisciplinary collaborative aircraft design is applied to a 90 passengers regional jet aircraft highlighting the impact on costs and performance. Two retrofitting packages have been considered: the re-engining of conventional power-plant platform with advanced geared turbofan and the on-board-system modernization, considering different level of electrification. Starting from a reference existing aircraft, the impacts of retrofitting process have been carefully evaluated on capital costs and revenues at industrial level through a developed methodology. At aircraft level, masses, performance, noise, and emissions have been computed with dedicated competences increasing the estimation reliability. Overall process is implemented in the framework of the AGILE 4.0 research project in a collaborative remote multidisciplinary approach. Results show that such retrofitting activities are expensive and must be evaluated since the design stage with a bottom-up approach requiring competences coming from designer experience to correctly define the process work-breakdown-structure and its implications.