Loft v4.0: An Updated Automated Mesh Generator for Stiffened-Shell Aerospace Vehicles

Loft is an automated parametric mesh generation code that is designed to model stiffened-panel aerospace vehicle structures. After more than 20 years of in-house use and development, the program was released to the public in 2023. Since that release, significant additional features have been added, including new object types, new airfoil shapes, program flow control options, additional options for selecting parts of models, and support for creating boundary conditions, loads, and rigid element stitching from within the code. These additions address previous limitations of the code and significantly expand its application and usefulness. This memorandum is presented in two parts. The first part contains a technical paper with a brief overview of the code and its applications and a more lengthy discussion of the program’s new features. Part two of the memorandum is the updated program user manual. The manual includes in-depth tutorials that use the new features and a complete command reference.