The European TOICA project intended to radically improve the way thermal studies are performed within aircraft design processes. Its goal was to create a platform for collaborative modeling and simulation of the thermal behavior of aircraft airframe systems, equipment and components. The resulting overall thermal aircraft architecture is developed and exploited in a Behavioral Digital Aircraft environment that is designed to the needs of thermal architects and experts.
The efficient treatment of thermal energy on board plays a significant role in the design of future aircrafts due to higher heat loads caused by in-flight entertainment systems, new electrical driven power and actuating systems, use of composite materials and last but not least environmental targets to reduce the fuel consumption and emissions. This challenging task can only be achieved by an integrated approach for modeling and simulation of the interaction between all systems. An according tool chain will be developed in this project.