On Three Dimensional High Lift Flow Computations

Abstract

Computing 3D high lift flows has been a challenge to the CFD community because of three important reasons: complex physics, complex geometries and large computational requirements. In the recent years, considerable progress has been made in understanding the suitability of various CFD solvers in computing 3D high lift flows, through the systematic studies carried out under High Lift Prediction workshops. The primary focus of these workshops is to assess the ability of the CFD solvers to predict CLmax and αmax associated with the high lift flows, apart from the predictability of lift and drag of such flows in the linear region. Now there is a reasonable consensus in the community about the ability of the CFD solvers to predict these quantities and fresh efforts to further understand the ability of the CFD solvers to predict more complex physics associated with these flows have already begun. The goal of this thesis is to assess the capability of the computational methods in predicting such complex flow phenomena associated with the 3D High-Lift systems. For evaluation NASA three element Trapezoidal wing configuration which poses a challenging task in numerical modeling was selected. Unstructured data based 3D RANS solver HiFUN (HiFUN stands for High Resolution Flow Solver for UNstructured Meshes) is used in investigating the high lift flow. The computations were run fully turbulent, using the one equation Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model. A summary of the results obtained using the flow solver HiFUN for the 3D High lift NASA Trapezoidal wing are presented. Hybrid unstructured grids have been used for the computations. Grid converged solution obtained for the clean wing and the wing with support brackets, are compared with experimental data. The ability of the solver to predict critical design parameters associated with the high lift flow, such as αmax and CLmax is demonstrated. The utility of the CFD tools, in predicting change in aerodynamic parameters in response to perturbational changes in the configuration is brought out. The solutions obtained for the high lift configuration from two variants of the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model are compared. To check the unsteadiness in the flow, particularly near stall, unsteady simulations were performed on static grid. Lastly, hysteresis on lower leg of lift curve is discussed, the results obtained for quasi-steady and dynamic unsteady simulations are presented. Inferences from the study on useful design practices pertaining to the 3D high lift flow simulations are summarized.