CFD and CFD-Based Optimization in Aerodynamic High-Lift Design

Abstract

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) found its way into aircraft design starting with the important contributions of A. Jameson in the late 1980’s. First, Euler methods were implemented and in the 1990’s with the rise of the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) methods and the growing availability of high-preformance computers (HPC) mathematical optimization. A recent review on the spread of CFD in aircraft design has been provided by Martins. Anyhow, this summary concentrates on overall aircraft and curise flight design. In high-lift system design, numerical optimization based on RANS-CFD for multi-element airfoils was introduced by Eyi et al. and validated as design method by the author. A review on the role of computational methods in high-lift deisgn was presented at that time by van Dam. The first application of numerical optimization on a full 3D aircraft wing was reported by Brezillon et al. in 2008 followed by a kind of design challenge decribed by Iannelli et al. . Nevertheless, full 3D numerical optimization based on RANS is not as established for the high-lift wing as it is for the cruise condition – and this for good reasons. The lecture attempts to give some insight into some recent experience on the use of CFD methods in high-lift design, both for classical aircraft configurations or for more challenging new architectures of high-lift systems.