Conventions

This page summarises conventions used in the program.

Object hierarchy

All data related to the aircraft model is contained in the Aircraft class. Much like in the CPACS definition, the aircraft is represented as an assembly of components structured hierarchically:

  • The Aircraft has lifting surfaces which are instances of class Wing
  • Each Wing is defined as the assembly of twisted quadrilaterals WingSegment
  • Each WingSegment is further divided into SegmentStrip
  • Each SegmentStrip is further divided into StripSubdivision
  • Each Wing can have control surfaces WingControl
Basic hierarchy

Fig. 10 Basic object hierarchy. An aircraft object is made up of wings, segments, controls, strips and strip subdivisions.

Note

The user of PyTornado will only ever have to deal with the defintion of the aircraft, wings and control surfaces. Segment strips and strip subdivisions are internal objects used to facilitate mesh generation for aircraft with control surfaces.