Computation of Aerodynamic Coefficients for Transport Aircraft with MEGAFLOW

Abstract

The accuracy of the DLR structured and unstructured computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes predicting aircraft forces and moments on several configurations at low and high Mach and Reynolds numbers is investigated. Using a combination of a high quality grid, i.e. a grid with sufficient resolution of important flow features, low levels of artificial dissipation and advanced turbulence models, the structured code (FLOWer) is able to both qualitatively and quantitatively predict the experimentally measured drag, lift, pitching moment and pressure distribution. Compared to the structured methods the total time for grid generation is significantly reduced with the unstructured approach (TAU). The quality of the flow solution is comparable to the structured method at significantly higher computational costs.