Raymond R. Cosner, Boeing Phantom Works
Driven by pressures to improve both cost and cycle time in the design process, computational simulation has become a pervasive tool in the engineering development of complex systems such as commercial and military aircraft and space launch vehicles. Fueled by the tremendous rate of advance in engineering computing power, acceptance of computational design tools and the results from using those tools has accelerated in the last few years. We anticipate this pace for improving our capabilities likely will continue to accelerate. Based on this view of enabling technologies, we present a vision for the future of aerospace design, ten to twenty years from now. We will then identify some of the major barriers that will hinder the technical community in realizing that vision, and discuss the advances that are needed to overcome those barriers.