Steady-state laminar flow solutions for NACA 0012 airfoil

Abstract

In this paper we consider the solution of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations for a class of laminar airfoil flows. The principal objective of this paper is to demonstrate that members of this class of laminar flows have steady-state solutions. These laminar airfoil flow cases are often used to evaluate accuracy, stability and convergence of numerical solution algorithms for the Navier–Stokes equations. In recent years such flows have also been used as test cases for high-order numerical schemes. While generally consistent steady-state solutions have been obtained for these flows using higher order schemes, a number of results have been published with various solutions, including unsteady ones. We demonstrate with two different numerical methods and a range of meshes with a maximum density that exceeds 8 × 10^6 grid points that steady-state solutions are obtained. Furthermore, numerical evidence is presented that even when solving the equations with an unsteady algorithm, one obtains steady-state solutions.