DAF research group is involved in basic and applied research activities concerning Aircraft Design, Aircraft Aerodynamic Design, Wind Tunnel tests and Flight Tests and Flight Simulation.

AIRCRAFT DESIGN
The group is involved in the design of light aircraft, general aviation aircraft and commercial transport aircraft. Some activities have been addressed to the design and optimization of Tecnam Aircraft Industries aircraft, in cooperation with the company. Other research activities with industrial involvement have been performed in cooperation with ATR and Leonardo Company about the design of a new regional transport aircraft with 90 – 130 passengers. The group is also involved in the development of new methodologies for aircraft preliminary design and in the development of innovative software framework for aircraft MDO (Multi-Disciplinary Optimization). The group is involved in the H2020 project AGILE (Aircraft 3rd Generation MDO for Innovative Collaboration of Heterogeneous Teams of Experts) (2015-2018) and in the project ADORNO (2018-2022) on the design of low-noise and emissions regional jet configurations.

AIRCRAFT AERODYNAMICS & CFD APPLICATIONS
Research activities are also focused on complex aerodynamic analyses and optimization. Multicomponent airfoils, aircraft components such as wing-fuselage junction, fairings and winglet are designed, analyzed and optimized. The group has gained a considerable experience with Navier-Stokes RANS CFD for the analysis and optimization of complex complete aircraft configurations.

WIND-TUNNEL TESTS
Wind-tunnel research activities concerned more than 20 airfoils and multicomponent airfoil and several light and general aviation 3D scaled models. Wind tunnel tests have been also performed on an helicopter scaled model.