Automation of Aircraft Pre-design Using a Versatile Data Transfer and Storage Format in a Distributed Computing Environment

In the aerospace field one often has to deal with a host of highly specialized software applications that need to be orchestrated into one optimization process to produce e. g., an optimized aircraft model. This optimization process combines engineering knowledge from fields as diverse as aerodynamics, aeroelasticity, engine building, environmental impact assessment, material science and structural issues. For each field of science there are highly performant problem solvers available, but yet they don't share the same data exchange formats. The specialized knowledge in each institution involved in a larger project cannot be leveraged easily by other project partners, thus calling for a software and data integration solution to enable global interconnection of local tools. At the German Aerospace Center (DLR) there have been carried out several projects linked with this challenge. We will present here shortly the building blocks for data interchange as well as an example for a workflow building between DLR's institutes (work in progress).