Bio-Inspired Design of Manufacturable Aerostructures for 2Next-Generation Aircraft (September 2026).

This paper was presented by Thomas McCaughtry at the 42nd International Manufacturing Conference (IMC42), co-organized by the Irish Manufacturing Council and Queen’s University Belfast, which was held on 10 and 11 September 2026 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The plenary sessions of the conference occurred on the 10th September at the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Centre (AMIC), Global Point, Newtownabbey, followed by technical sessions and a tour of AMIC facilities in the afternoon.

Abstract: The integration of liquid hydrogen fuel systems into commercial aircraft is a generational challenge for the aerospace industry as it urgently seeks to decarbonise aviation. Established structural optimisation methods may not fully consider manufacturability, cost or buckling, so have limitations for this multi-disciplinary problem. Here we present an alternative bio-inspired approach featuring manufacturing cost and buckling in a generative design tool. Sets of design rules for creating low-cost, buckle-free fuselage panels were evolved and can replicate key design features from conventional aerostructures, within a restricted search space. This provides confidence in more radical hydrogen aircraft concepts generated by the algorithm in the future when these design constraints are removed and complex structural and thermal loading is introduced.

The link to the full paper will be provided in due course.