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THE present work is motivated by the fact that to enhance structural performance in aerospace field, new design concepts for aircraft structures are needed. Two aspects are of particular interest for industry and manufacturing: bring design optimization and high-fidelity analysis in the early stages of design and bring together as many disciplines as possible. The quest for the best design is dictated by many constraints related to environmental issues, manufacturing time and cost, maintenance cost, and operational cost, which have to be added to the typical structural integrity and safety constraints. As a consequence, nowadays, engineers are challenged to take into account all these aspects during the early stages of concept design, and they need new analysis tools to accomplish this complex task.

The biggest limitation in classic structural design is the use of very simple components as straight spars and ribs …