Multidisciplinary Design of Rigid Airship equipped to Superyacht in Collaboration with Pininfarina

Airships belong to the category of aerostat, which is an aircraft lighter than air that uses a buoyancy gas to generate its lift. It is classified into three main types—rigid airship, nonrigid airship, and hybrid airship—all of which can utilise two methods to increase or reduce (modu-late) the upward force to control it. The first way involves volume changing of gas and there-fore its density to balance the fuel weight decrease, manoeuvring the airship and changing its altitude. The second method is to use a hull aerodynamically to get a lift component, which can be modulated to change airship inclination, balance fuel, and reduce weight. There are many ways to move from one part of the world to the other. So why choose to de-sign an airship? The first motivation is that the global airship market is estimated to increase in value by 7.2 per cent from 2016 to 2024, therefore presenting a great economic opportunity. Other advantages are that it is economical and environmentally friendly. Tools like WBS, study logic, timelines, and so on help the study manager to handle and opti-mise resources. The design begins with a top-down approach with an SHA and NA that allow one to get the general guidelines that define the system. The target is to define the individual elements that make up the system, where the input for preliminary design is the requirements and the output is the general dimensions and weights. At the beginning, the designer can compare the input of the project with those of rigid airships already made to get an idea of the possible output values to expect. The size of the gondola and hull are important parameters to define airship weight. The other steps provide for the calculation of a zero lift drag coefficient of main airship elements and the airship trim, preliminary tail sizing to know the fin’s surface, and an estimate of range and endurance to define the take-off and landing analysis and pro-pulsion system. These data permit one to estimate airship weight and its systems. Precise calculations of what make up the airship and fuel weight provide useful data to initiate a more detailed analysis. A fundamental output of this preliminary design phase is the gas volume needed to balance airship weight; its value has great influence on the aircraft size. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to show all formulas and logical steps linked to the "Aerodynamic airship model" and implemented in the Excel program RAsDEx 1.0 to get a preliminary description of airship dimensions and performances, aerodynamic data, propulsion system, weight estimation, and gas volume required.