OPTIMIZATION OF AIRCRAFT ENGINE SUSPENSION SYSTEMS

An interactive computer program has been developed to design aircraft engine mounting systems used for vibration isolation. Mount design is largely driven by two competing criteria. Mounts must be soft enough t o provide vibration isolation, vet stiff enough to support the engine without excessive motions. The constrained variable metric optimizatio n technique is used to determine the mount design parameters which min imize the transmitted forces in the mounts, subject to constraints on the maximum allowable deflection of the engine to static forces. The d esign parameters are the stiffness and orientation of each individual engine mount. The aircraft engine is modeled as a rigid body that is m ounted to a rigid base representing the nacelle. An example is used to show that the optimization technique is effective in designing engine mounting system.