Towards an effective interoperability of models within the 'Systems Engineering' applied to aeronautics

Aeronautics is a typical field of application of the Systems Engineering, since aircraft includes many on–board equipments. The Systems Engineering provides some suitable tool for an effective description of their functional behavior but a detailed design needs a quantitative investigation. This task is performed by resorting to modeling techniques, which define all the equations required to predict the dynamic behavior in operation. Physical phenomena are described by numerical models, which nowadays have to be connected to the tools of the Systems Engineering to proceed with a really integrated product life management. This task is a fascinating feature of the so–called ‘inter–operability’, which can be implemented among methods, models and numerical tools. A test case is herein shown and concerns the modeling of a de–icing system for a regional turboprop. A brief description of the modeling activity is proposed, then tools of the System Engineering are applied to perform a review of requirements. Limits of functional models are explored as well as some weak information about functions and requirements in the physical models is detected. Region of inter–operability of the two modeling environments is consequently defined. The available methodologies for interoperating the design tools are discussed, by resorting to the tasks of the ARTEMIS–CRYSTAL project.